You're not a developer. If an an API has been deprecated in iOS 9 for the first time, it will work just fine. Apple fully supports deprecated APIs for 1-2 major releases before they are abandoned. Supporting iOS 9 is quick and easy; any well written iOS 8 app works flawlessly. The people who get intro trouble are part of three groups:
1) Those who have chosen not to write a native app like users want and are beholden to third party tools to port over their Java / Flash / whatever and have to wait for those tools to be updated
2) Those who are foolishly still trying to support iOS 5 or 6. These people's apps are filled with mountains of OS related conditional code so big they have no idea what's going on in their app anymore.
3) Those that use code that was already deprecated in iOS 8 or before, or that wasn't following best practices in iOS 8. This includes people who still can't use AutoLayout, people who still don't know how to use ARC, people who can't write a line of Swift, people who've never implemented viewWillTransitionToSize, people who still throw UIAlertView's instead of UIAlertController, and so on.
The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
The better developers always release fixes during the beta period to fix certain crashes/bugs that occur on the beta OS. Happens every year, and its always the higher caliber developers.
The ones that let their App crash for 4 months without doing anything...they are not committed developers. Often you will see these same Apps continue crashing with no updates for a period of time after the public release of the OS. Whats the excuse then?
It is a fact: The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
The better developers always release fixes during the beta period to fix certain crashes/bugs that occur on the beta OS. Happens every year, and its always the higher caliber developers.
The ones that let their App crash for 4 months without doing anything...they are not committed developers. Often you will see these same Apps continue crashing with no updates for a period of time after the public release of the OS. Whats the excuse then?
It is a fact: The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
Or maybe it is a time and resources thing. Not everyone works for a big company with unlimited resources. The app I work on started out as an ios5 app that has slowly morphed into an ios7/8 app. I would like to do more with it to convert to the latest best practices but we only have so much time and resources. The conversions will happen but not necessarily immediately when Apple announces API changes and new best practices. It says nothing of the caliber of the developer when it takes time and resources, not always readily available, to update apps to the latest best practices and APIs. Small startups don't always have those in abundance to pivot as Apple makes changes.
Once again I’ll repeat that I never pay attention to online customer reviews, good or bad. Most are uninformed dolts who barely know how to operate a device or have an axe to grind much less post their opinions. The really hilarious ones always start with “DO NOT BUY!” WARNING!
I know why... On "pocket tunes" i lost all of my recordings of internet stations... (I can not play them)
Lego minifigures will not start.
Not only that d@mn apple music "converted" all of the purchased music i had on my ipad to "apple music" meaning i lost it all, and now have to re-download it all (not to mention all of the lossless versions i will need to re-transfer)
Or maybe it is a time and resources thing. Not everyone works for a big company with unlimited resources. The app I work on started out as an ios5 app that has slowly morphed into an ios7/8 app. I would like to do more with it to convert to the latest best practices but we only have so much time and resources. The conversions will happen but not necessarily immediately when Apple announces API changes and new best practices. It says nothing of the caliber of the developer when it takes time and resources, not always readily available, to update apps to the latest best practices and APIs. Small startups don't always have those in abundance to pivot as Apple makes changes.
You're basically describing how competition works. Someone more dedicated than yourself has the opportunity to replace your App with their own, by doing nothing more than staying on top of what Apple and the user base expect a modern App to be.
I firmly believe in Apple's curation policies on the store, and I feel they should be even more rigid, to the benefit of the user experience. Far too many Apps on the store that have either A) not been updated in a long time, or are not utilizing enough of the APIs Apple has developed and made available.
Every year, Apple unveils a new set of a thousand or more APIs, that are not just options, but more like instructions...guidance, if you will. They basically say to developers, "You want to make a good App that works well on iOS and garners high customer satisfaction? Find a way to include as many Apple-created features powered by our APIs"
Even though Apple has not done so (yet), I would encourage them to start removing Apps from the store that fail to meet a certain standard of basic functionality (within reason). For example, If you want to Categorize your App as "Banking" or "Finance" you be required to support Touch ID login and iCloud Keychain. If you want to Categorize your App as "Video" you should be required to include AirPlay and now PiP as well.
Just general examples, but you get the idea. Far too many lazy developers out there not taking advantage of what Apple has to offer. The user is the one that suffers, and its no one's interest for the user to have low customer sat over Apps not taking advantage of the OS they operate on.
You're basically describing how competition works. Someone more dedicated than yourself has the opportunity to replace your App with their own, by doing nothing more than staying on top of what Apple and the user base expect a modern App to be.
It has nothing to do with dedication. Or developer skill, as you had previously been maintaining. It has to do with time and resources. Every one is affected by that and some companies have more time or resources than others. Lots of apps are commissioned by a company and independent developers write the app. Those developer may have nothing to do with the app in years to come. It is owned by the company that commissioned it.
I am not saying ANYTHING about what Apple should do or not do. I am only replying to those idiots who think it has to do with lazy or unskilled developers. That may be a subsection of it, but in no way describes most developers / companies with products in the App Store IMNSHO.
It is part of competition. You got that right. I am not saying companies are immune to competition. They have to live with their resource allocations.
The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
Not true *at all*.
As an iOS developer, and one that does not use any 3rd party frameworks, I can confirm that sometimes Apple breaks the functionality of its own APIs in betas. Even ones that are not deprecated. Sometimes Apple's engineers break something close to a feature they are enhancing, such as UI layout. And that's just fine, as that is part of the beta process and the reason for testing.
Assuming that an app problem on a beta is the developer's fault is a terrible leap of logic.
The better developers always release fixes during the beta period to fix certain crashes/bugs that occur on the beta OS. Happens every year, and its always the higher caliber developers.
The ones that let their App crash for 4 months without doing anything...they are not committed developers. Often you will see these same Apps continue crashing with no updates for a period of time after the public release of the OS. Whats the excuse then?
It is a fact: The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
Your point is meaningless. While we are in the beta period, there isn't even a way for "higher caliper" developers to patch their apps for iOS 9 yet. They could have the fixes ready but are unable to publish.
Unless you can provide a current example to the contrary, all iOS 9 crashes can be attributed to developer error.
That's not the point. Yes, a crash is a bug and the bug manifested itself in the iOS9 beta. It's still likely (but not necessarily) a developer bug. That being said, the crash can be for unforeseen reasons related to the changes in the OS. Operating system upgrades are not perfect in regards to backward compatibility.
However, developers cannot release iOS 9 versions prior to the release of iOS 9 during the beta period. They can attempt to patch the iOS 8 version so that it no longer crashes in iOS 9, but that takes some time in which ratings do their damage.
The beta period is for testing so bugs can be fixed prior to release. The developer had no opportunity prior to the beta to test and fix the crash before it got in the hands of customers. That's what the beta is for, to find and fix bugs BEFORE it's released. It's an unreleased operating system for a reason.
Therefore it's totally unfair to deep-six an app because it fails during beta. Beta is to find bugs, beta should expect bugs, and applications should never be rated on their performance during a test cycle.
Rating an app (affecting it's reputation) on it's performance during a testing cycle should never be allowed, period unless those ratings are expunged for release and those ratings apply only to people running that beta. At that point it's pointless (unless you're just testing the rating system) so just preventing them is a great way to go.
I'm a QA engineer. Testing is my job and this is how it's done.
It has nothing to do with dedication. Or developer skill, as you had previously been maintaining. It has to do with time and resources. Every one is affected by that and some companies have more time or resources than others. Lots of apps are commissioned by a company and independent developers write the app. Those developer may have nothing to do with the app in years to come. It is owned by the company that commissioned it.
I am not saying ANYTHING about what Apple should do or not do. I am only replying to those idiots who think it has to do with lazy or unskilled developers. That may be a subsection of it, but in no way describes most developers / companies with products in the App Store IMNSHO.
It is part of competition. You got that right. I am not saying companies are immune to competition. They have to live with their resource allocations.
It has everything to do with dedication. If you aren't dedicated, you won't have any time. If you ARE, then you'll dedicate as much time as you need to a project. The excuse is that there isn't enough time to do something is just a translation of "I'm just not dedicated enough."
Unless you can provide a current example to the contrary, all iOS 9 crashes can be attributed to developer error.
AppleInsiders own app crashes on early versions of iOS 9 beta but works in the latest developer preview even though it has not been updated since 04/15/15
Unless you are saying that they magically back dated an update to before the release that then was magically installed when I updated to the latest DP.
Granted by your nonsensical arguments I guess that magic would be a more fitting explanation then that beta software can have issues that are not single app developers faults.
Unless of course you are including Apple developers in your "attributed to Developer errors" which in that case I would say that is true, but is not limited to just third part devs.
It seems that Apple is now firmly on its predetermined path to a goal of "managing" all our software. Apple does not need or want input especially complaints.
Their opening commercial, way back in time, might just have been a huge Freudian slip that pre-echoed a possible Steve Jobs philosophy... control, control, control.
Each "update" of OS "manages" more of your info in the way the Apple wishes. Have you tried to "downgrade" your OS to a previous more user-oriented version (even within OS 10.7) so that things like iTunes and photo management worked the way YOU wanted them to?
At some point will we be paying to use ANY of our own information %u2014 including images %u2014 that happens to be stored in the "cloud"?
3) Those that use code that was already deprecated in iOS 8 or before, or that wasn't following best practices in iOS 8. This includes people who still can't use AutoLayout, people who still don't know how to use ARC, people who can't write a line of Swift, people who've never implemented viewWillTransitionToSize, people who still throw UIAlertView's instead of UIAlertController, and so on.
The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
So what if someone isn't a great developer? What does that have to do with this? What if it's a person learning to code that isn't elite like youreself? As long as your application works well and as advertised, you shouldn't be penalized because it surfaced a bug during a beta. It should be rated on it's operation and performance when it's released, not during testing.
Perhaps iOS 8 to 9 isn't a harsh upgrade path, but past betas have cause many many very popular apps to not run.
Poor developer doesn't mean your app is crap and taking ratings based on performance during a beta isn't fair because the purpose of the beta is for testing (so that you have the opportunity to fix your app before release.)
The better developers always release fixes during the beta period to fix certain crashes/bugs that occur on the beta OS. Happens every year, and its always the higher caliber developers.
It is a fact: The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
Two questions:
1) How does one of these "higher caliber" developers release a fix to their users when Apple does not allow developers to upload apps using a beta release of either Xcode or iOS?
2) Which are your apps so that we can check them all against the iOS 9 beta?
Unless you can provide a current example to the contrary, all iOS 9 crashes can be attributed to developer error.
What if that developer works for Apple?
How, precisely, would you expect a developer to provide you with an example that you would accept of an app that crashes where it's not due to developer error?
Who the hell are you to make so many nasty comments about the quality of Apple developers anyway?
Aren't only devs supposed to get beta versions? So how are devs bad mouthing other devs? They should know best that apps might not work correctly.
Supposed to be and actual are two different things. Yes you are correct that the beta is just for other developers but customers get it just to play with the latest software, they don't understand that a beta is expected to have problems, and they trash app reviews because they don't know better. This is why they're blocking reviews.
Also, for the first time they opened the beta up to the public that choose to try it. So in this case it's not just developers.
So what if someone isn't a great developer? What does that have to do with this? What if it's a person learning to code that isn't elite like youreself? As long as your application works well and as advertised, you shouldn't be penalized because it surfaced a bug during a beta. It should be rated on it's operation and performance when it's released, not during testing.
Perhaps iOS 8 to 9 isn't a harsh upgrade path, but past betas have cause many many very popular apps to not run.
Poor developer doesn't mean your app is crap and taking ratings based on performance during a beta isn't fair because the purpose of the beta is for testing (so that you have the opportunity to fix your app before release.)
It's not even about being a good developer or not. Apple does change things and not every app can be built using apple's preferred 'best practices' We maintain a core set of libraries in C so they can be used cross platform. We have in the past before the APIs supported it accessed raw sensor data. We have spent thousands of man-hours over the years overcoming limitations in the hardware and software that APIs alone or using "auto layout" or "Swift?" would never be a solution for. Having issues with new versions of phone hardware or iOS is not exclusively the sign of a bad developer (though it could be). Many times your business requirements can't be satisfied by Apple's 'best practices' and you have to get creative and adjust as the landscape changes.
Just in the last few versions of iOS 9 Beta I have seen flagship apps from top tier developers that did not function under beta 1 or 2 but seemed to do well under beta 3 without a single update.
Glad that this happened. If you are using a beta OS you have no right leaving reviews and complain about apps crashing. There is a reason Apple have a whole document called "Known Issues" right next to the beta download link.
The better developers always release fixes during the beta period to fix certain crashes/bugs that occur on the beta OS. Happens every year, and its always the higher caliber developers.
The ones that let their App crash for 4 months without doing anything...they are not committed developers. Often you will see these same Apps continue crashing with no updates for a period of time after the public release of the OS. Whats the excuse then?
It is a fact: The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
You have very little understanding of how Apple's, or any companies, Beta process works. The devs can't submit until the final release. They can't use xCode 7 until that is out of beta. Generally that's the same day.
Furthermore most bugs are in Apples API because that's what changed. In fact that's most of the point of the developer beta process, to both showcase new API and iron out bugs in the updated API.
The public beta programme is for general user level bugs, and of course devs can submit those bugs too.
Comments
You're not a developer. If an an API has been deprecated in iOS 9 for the first time, it will work just fine. Apple fully supports deprecated APIs for 1-2 major releases before they are abandoned. Supporting iOS 9 is quick and easy; any well written iOS 8 app works flawlessly. The people who get intro trouble are part of three groups:
1) Those who have chosen not to write a native app like users want and are beholden to third party tools to port over their Java / Flash / whatever and have to wait for those tools to be updated
2) Those who are foolishly still trying to support iOS 5 or 6. These people's apps are filled with mountains of OS related conditional code so big they have no idea what's going on in their app anymore.
3) Those that use code that was already deprecated in iOS 8 or before, or that wasn't following best practices in iOS 8. This includes people who still can't use AutoLayout, people who still don't know how to use ARC, people who can't write a line of Swift, people who've never implemented viewWillTransitionToSize, people who still throw UIAlertView's instead of UIAlertController, and so on.
The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
The better developers always release fixes during the beta period to fix certain crashes/bugs that occur on the beta OS. Happens every year, and its always the higher caliber developers.
The ones that let their App crash for 4 months without doing anything...they are not committed developers. Often you will see these same Apps continue crashing with no updates for a period of time after the public release of the OS. Whats the excuse then?
It is a fact: The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
Or maybe it is a time and resources thing. Not everyone works for a big company with unlimited resources. The app I work on started out as an ios5 app that has slowly morphed into an ios7/8 app. I would like to do more with it to convert to the latest best practices but we only have so much time and resources. The conversions will happen but not necessarily immediately when Apple announces API changes and new best practices. It says nothing of the caliber of the developer when it takes time and resources, not always readily available, to update apps to the latest best practices and APIs. Small startups don't always have those in abundance to pivot as Apple makes changes.
Once again I’ll repeat that I never pay attention to online customer reviews, good or bad. Most are uninformed dolts who barely know how to operate a device or have an axe to grind much less post their opinions. The really hilarious ones always start with “DO NOT BUY!” WARNING!
Lego minifigures will not start.
Not only that d@mn apple music "converted" all of the purchased music i had on my ipad to "apple music" meaning i lost it all, and now have to re-download it all (not to mention all of the lossless versions i will need to re-transfer)
Or maybe it is a time and resources thing. Not everyone works for a big company with unlimited resources. The app I work on started out as an ios5 app that has slowly morphed into an ios7/8 app. I would like to do more with it to convert to the latest best practices but we only have so much time and resources. The conversions will happen but not necessarily immediately when Apple announces API changes and new best practices. It says nothing of the caliber of the developer when it takes time and resources, not always readily available, to update apps to the latest best practices and APIs. Small startups don't always have those in abundance to pivot as Apple makes changes.
You're basically describing how competition works. Someone more dedicated than yourself has the opportunity to replace your App with their own, by doing nothing more than staying on top of what Apple and the user base expect a modern App to be.
I firmly believe in Apple's curation policies on the store, and I feel they should be even more rigid, to the benefit of the user experience. Far too many Apps on the store that have either A) not been updated in a long time, or
are not utilizing enough of the APIs Apple has developed and made available.
Every year, Apple unveils a new set of a thousand or more APIs, that are not just options, but more like instructions...guidance, if you will. They basically say to developers, "You want to make a good App that works well on iOS and garners high customer satisfaction? Find a way to include as many Apple-created features powered by our APIs"
Even though Apple has not done so (yet), I would encourage them to start removing Apps from the store that fail to meet a certain standard of basic functionality (within reason). For example, If you want to Categorize your App as "Banking" or "Finance" you be required to support Touch ID login and iCloud Keychain. If you want to Categorize your App as "Video" you should be required to include AirPlay and now PiP as well.
Just general examples, but you get the idea. Far too many lazy developers out there not taking advantage of what Apple has to offer. The user is the one that suffers, and its no one's interest for the user to have low customer sat over Apps not taking advantage of the OS they operate on.
You're basically describing how competition works. Someone more dedicated than yourself has the opportunity to replace your App with their own, by doing nothing more than staying on top of what Apple and the user base expect a modern App to be.
It has nothing to do with dedication. Or developer skill, as you had previously been maintaining. It has to do with time and resources. Every one is affected by that and some companies have more time or resources than others. Lots of apps are commissioned by a company and independent developers write the app. Those developer may have nothing to do with the app in years to come. It is owned by the company that commissioned it.
I am not saying ANYTHING about what Apple should do or not do. I am only replying to those idiots who think it has to do with lazy or unskilled developers. That may be a subsection of it, but in no way describes most developers / companies with products in the App Store IMNSHO.
It is part of competition. You got that right. I am not saying companies are immune to competition. They have to live with their resource allocations.
The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
Not true *at all*.
As an iOS developer, and one that does not use any 3rd party frameworks, I can confirm that sometimes Apple breaks the functionality of its own APIs in betas. Even ones that are not deprecated. Sometimes Apple's engineers break something close to a feature they are enhancing, such as UI layout. And that's just fine, as that is part of the beta process and the reason for testing.
Assuming that an app problem on a beta is the developer's fault is a terrible leap of logic.
The better developers always release fixes during the beta period to fix certain crashes/bugs that occur on the beta OS. Happens every year, and its always the higher caliber developers.
The ones that let their App crash for 4 months without doing anything...they are not committed developers. Often you will see these same Apps continue crashing with no updates for a period of time after the public release of the OS. Whats the excuse then?
It is a fact: The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
Your point is meaningless. While we are in the beta period, there isn't even a way for "higher caliper" developers to patch their apps for iOS 9 yet. They could have the fixes ready but are unable to publish.
Disallowing reviews on betas is a good thing.
Unless you can provide a current example to the contrary, all iOS 9 crashes can be attributed to developer error.
That's not the point. Yes, a crash is a bug and the bug manifested itself in the iOS9 beta. It's still likely (but not necessarily) a developer bug. That being said, the crash can be for unforeseen reasons related to the changes in the OS. Operating system upgrades are not perfect in regards to backward compatibility.
However, developers cannot release iOS 9 versions prior to the release of iOS 9 during the beta period. They can attempt to patch the iOS 8 version so that it no longer crashes in iOS 9, but that takes some time in which ratings do their damage.
The beta period is for testing so bugs can be fixed prior to release. The developer had no opportunity prior to the beta to test and fix the crash before it got in the hands of customers. That's what the beta is for, to find and fix bugs BEFORE it's released. It's an unreleased operating system for a reason.
Therefore it's totally unfair to deep-six an app because it fails during beta. Beta is to find bugs, beta should expect bugs, and applications should never be rated on their performance during a test cycle.
Rating an app (affecting it's reputation) on it's performance during a testing cycle should never be allowed, period unless those ratings are expunged for release and those ratings apply only to people running that beta. At that point it's pointless (unless you're just testing the rating system) so just preventing them is a great way to go.
I'm a QA engineer. Testing is my job and this is how it's done.
It has everything to do with dedication. If you aren't dedicated, you won't have any time. If you ARE, then you'll dedicate as much time as you need to a project. The excuse is that there isn't enough time to do something is just a translation of "I'm just not dedicated enough."
AppleInsiders own app crashes on early versions of iOS 9 beta but works in the latest developer preview even though it has not been updated since 04/15/15
Unless you are saying that they magically back dated an update to before the release that then was magically installed when I updated to the latest DP.
Granted by your nonsensical arguments I guess that magic would be a more fitting explanation then that beta software can have issues that are not single app developers faults.
Unless of course you are including Apple developers in your "attributed to Developer errors" which in that case I would say that is true, but is not limited to just third part devs.
Their opening commercial, way back in time, might just have been a huge Freudian slip that pre-echoed a possible Steve Jobs philosophy... control, control, control.
Each "update" of OS "manages" more of your info in the way the Apple wishes.
Have you tried to "downgrade" your OS to a previous more user-oriented version (even within OS 10.7) so that things like iTunes and photo management worked the way YOU wanted them to?
At some point will we be paying to use ANY of our own information %u2014 including images %u2014 that happens to be stored in the "cloud"?
3) Those that use code that was already deprecated in iOS 8 or before, or that wasn't following best practices in iOS 8. This includes people who still can't use AutoLayout, people who still don't know how to use ARC, people who can't write a line of Swift, people who've never implemented viewWillTransitionToSize, people who still throw UIAlertView's instead of UIAlertController, and so on.
The people whose apps aren't working are poor developers. Plain and simple.
So what if someone isn't a great developer? What does that have to do with this? What if it's a person learning to code that isn't elite like youreself? As long as your application works well and as advertised, you shouldn't be penalized because it surfaced a bug during a beta. It should be rated on it's operation and performance when it's released, not during testing.
Perhaps iOS 8 to 9 isn't a harsh upgrade path, but past betas have cause many many very popular apps to not run.
Poor developer doesn't mean your app is crap and taking ratings based on performance during a beta isn't fair because the purpose of the beta is for testing (so that you have the opportunity to fix your app before release.)
Two questions:
1) How does one of these "higher caliber" developers release a fix to their users when Apple does not allow developers to upload apps using a beta release of either Xcode or iOS?
2) Which are your apps so that we can check them all against the iOS 9 beta?
What if that developer works for Apple?
How, precisely, would you expect a developer to provide you with an example that you would accept of an app that crashes where it's not due to developer error?
Who the hell are you to make so many nasty comments about the quality of Apple developers anyway?
Aren't only devs supposed to get beta versions? So how are devs bad mouthing other devs? They should know best that apps might not work correctly.
Supposed to be and actual are two different things. Yes you are correct that the beta is just for other developers but customers get it just to play with the latest software, they don't understand that a beta is expected to have problems, and they trash app reviews because they don't know better. This is why they're blocking reviews.
Also, for the first time they opened the beta up to the public that choose to try it. So in this case it's not just developers.
So what if someone isn't a great developer? What does that have to do with this? What if it's a person learning to code that isn't elite like youreself? As long as your application works well and as advertised, you shouldn't be penalized because it surfaced a bug during a beta. It should be rated on it's operation and performance when it's released, not during testing.
Perhaps iOS 8 to 9 isn't a harsh upgrade path, but past betas have cause many many very popular apps to not run.
Poor developer doesn't mean your app is crap and taking ratings based on performance during a beta isn't fair because the purpose of the beta is for testing (so that you have the opportunity to fix your app before release.)
It's not even about being a good developer or not. Apple does change things and not every app can be built using apple's preferred 'best practices' We maintain a core set of libraries in C so they can be used cross platform. We have in the past before the APIs supported it accessed raw sensor data. We have spent thousands of man-hours over the years overcoming limitations in the hardware and software that APIs alone or using "auto layout" or "Swift?" would never be a solution for. Having issues with new versions of phone hardware or iOS is not exclusively the sign of a bad developer (though it could be). Many times your business requirements can't be satisfied by Apple's 'best practices' and you have to get creative and adjust as the landscape changes.
Just in the last few versions of iOS 9 Beta I have seen flagship apps from top tier developers that did not function under beta 1 or 2 but seemed to do well under beta 3 without a single update.
You have very little understanding of how Apple's, or any companies, Beta process works. The devs can't submit until the final release. They can't use xCode 7 until that is out of beta. Generally that's the same day.
Furthermore most bugs are in Apples API because that's what changed. In fact that's most of the point of the developer beta process, to both showcase new API and iron out bugs in the updated API.
The public beta programme is for general user level bugs, and of course devs can submit those bugs too.