This is big News. I was struggling with why my iPad App would crash on load. Certainly I thought it was my fault. Now I see other, bigger developers with the same greif. This may be Apple’s fault, Please research.
From FierceMobileContent:
Dozens of newly updated iOS applications distributed via Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store are crashing immediately after launch, with developers blaming the problem on an encryption glitch.
Instapaper creator Marco Arment first reported the issue Wednesday on his blog, writing “Last night, within minutes of Apple approving the Instapaper 4.2.3 update, I was deluged by support email and Twitter messages from customers saying that it crashed immediately on launch, even with a clean install… Lots of anxiety and research led me to the problem: a seemingly corrupt update being distributed by the App Store in many or possibly all regions. And this is happening to other apps, not just Instapaper, updated in the last few days.” Other iOS apps impacted by the glitch, according to Arment: Angry Birds Space HD Free, GoodReader, Meetup and Gaia GPS. (The complete list is here.)
GoodReader believes Apple has recently tweaked its app distribution engine: “Ever since that change there are ongoing problems at Apple’s end,” the developer states. “These problems result in a number of customers receiving a damaged binary which doesn’t start after updating apps on their devices… While in theory Apple’s servers must be ready to distribute the new app binary by the time they start sending update notifications to users’ devices, something goes wrong inside Apple’s distribution servers, and customers receive a damaged binary instead of the good one that we’ve sent to Apple. The exact reason is up to Apple to determine.”
Apple has not responded to requests for comment, although Arment notes that within hours of notifying the company of the issue, a corrected, functional version of Instapaper became available on reinstalls.
“The only fix for people with bad copies, once good copies are being served again by the App Store, is to delete and reinstall the app,” Arment states, adding “If you’re a developer, and you have a non-critical update pending release, I suggest waiting a few days for this to presumably get sorted out before releasing it. Because if this happens to you, all of your most active users, the people who will install updates within hours of them becoming available, will be stopped in their tracks. They’ll think you’re careless, incompetent and sloppy for issuing a release that doesn’t work. And they’ll leave you a lot of angry 1-star reviews.”
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