During its "Time Flies" event yesterday, Apple announced that iOS 14, iPadOS 14, watchOS 7, and tvOS 14 will be widely released today, providing developers with just one day's notice to submit their optimized apps for review.
While developers have had access to beta versions of the software updates since June, many were caught off guard by Apple's much shorter notice of the final releases. By comparison, Apple started accepting apps built for iOS 13 on September 10 last year, over one week before the software update was released on September 19.
A big WTF at Apple dropping iOS 14 tomorrow without giving developers any notice, or final tools to submit their apps 😂 — Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) September 15, 2020
Apple randomly dropping iOS 14 in one day without any prior notice is very on brand with 2020. — Shihab (JPEGuin) (@JPEGuin) September 15, 2020
I would like to thank @apple for giving developers less than 24 hours notice on the release of iOS 14. Zero time to submit our apps that support iOS 14’s features. 😕 — Aaron (@AaronTunney) September 15, 2020
Time flies, when you have no notice to submit app updates for iOS 14 🤣 — Dom (@domzy) September 15, 2020
Apple announcing the iOS 14 release date 24 hours ahead of time as a summer ending gift to developers 🤣 — Ben Thompson (@benthompson) September 15, 2020
I wouldn’t say that. It’s two eternal problems: - Apple’s hardware release dates dictate their software release dates, not the software quality or readiness. - Most of Apple seems to have *far* too little of an idea of the challenges and conditions faced by outside developers. https://t.co/uWGwlkYEvl — Marco Arment (@marcoarment) September 16, 2020
In an email to developers, Apple said that all iOS and iPadOS apps submitted to the App Store will need to be built with Xcode 12 and the iOS 14 SDK starting in April 2021. Likewise, Apple said all watchOS apps submitted to the App Store will need to be built with Xcode 12 and the watchOS 7 SDK starting in April 2021.
