This explains alot I have spent the last week making a work around thought I had it all working and now found another bug. When might this fix make it to the public release?
It won’t make it until the next public build, which will be after Graphics 2.0 is reasonably solid. It’s in Alpha testing now.
That is surprising as this seems like a big issue to anybody using the public builds with text input on IOS 7. Maybe I am overreacting but I had to stop selling one of apps because input is a big part of it. Luckily I have a pro account and access to daily builds and was able to get an update for the issue. As a platform that is trying distinguish itself for apps that are not just games it seems very surprising course of action. Again not trying to stir up much, just trying to get a feel for the platform future and support as my pro renewal date looms next year.
Thanks!
Ya my pro account expired and its gone up in price this year I was just going to get the ios only option since I dont bother with Android apps anymore. At least I know that a daily build fixes it. Maybe thats how you sell pro accounts. If I had know there was a fix it would have saved me a week of re writing around the bug only to find another strange bug the first character entered disappears on device only.
Hey guys - while we try to have public releases be as bullet proof as possible, it’s very tough to do when dealing with a platform of this complexity. There was also some interaction here with a new OS, which we have no control over. So it is inevitable that a few things like this will sometimes appear in a public release.
The good news is that we try to be very responsive and that is what our daily builds are for. So this is now fixed in daily builds. And yes, daily builds are only available to subscribers, but we are a business and have to keep the lights on somehow. As Rob said, we are working hard on the next public release and it will be here in the next couple of months.
David
David,
Thanks for the quick response. I definitely understand where you all are coming from about making money (day job is a small battery business manager). I guess from my view is that the text field issue is more of an unexpected issue than a new feature. Like I said earlier I am trying to figure out my options when my pro runs out (as a hobbyist 600 is probably too much for me) and I guess it bothers me that if I was using the public build to make my app and I ran into this issue, I would have to wait around two months to get a fix to my users. Again I used to work for a large software corporation and understand not release a new build or version for every issue, but what I saw with the text field in IOS 7 was not a small issue.
Again thanks for the quick response, I am a big fan of the platform and just trying to figure out my future plans.
Travis
Travis you do make a good point. I had to use daily build when ios 6 came out to fix a issue and I was a little leary about using it but had no choice. If you poke around you will find that the text input issues for ios 7 were discovered before it was released to the public. I took the app out of the app store when the ios 7 issues showed up and it was a really new app so it didnt effect that many people but if it was one of my other apps I would have got alot of flack in that week. Id like to see more time spent on getting ahead the bugs from new ios versions than the boatloads of new features. Just my input. Still a great platform.
Cheers
Rick
For what its worth to anyone finding this by a search I just discovered that in my case native.textBox works where textfield doesnt and its easy enough to make a textbox act like a textfield
Something that i feel is utter nonsense is that i had a daily build installed and let my pro run out this morning because i am just a hobbyist… and when i go to do some work, i was forced to delete the daily build and use the public release. If that isn’t a slap in the face idk what is. To revoke access to vital patches and not offer a workaround is nonsense! It is really a horrid and greedy business model forcing a subscription to remedy a MAJOR issue… If you want to charge for access to graphics 2.0 which isn’t important and add-on plugins, go ahead, but to revoke a patch to make the textfield functional is just flat out ridiculous… i am sorry but it is…
Now that i got that off my chest, what is the workaround for those of us who no longer have access to daily builds… Are we really stuck in limbo? I will look at the native.textBox as fastek2000 mentioned for now.
Update: i tried using native.textBox… it does not fix the lag that exists within the edit phase… this is rather disappointing. i guess all applications that use native fields are basically screwed till a new public release comes out. i just don’t see what you don’t release a patch or tell us a workaround for this. Having a crippled keyboard makes Corona absolutely worthless to me. I guess i will have to just remove my app from the store and call it quits. Do the right thing and just put a simple patch out!
jmarchalonis - sorry this is causing you some trouble, but unfortunately there isn’t much we can do. The issue this happened is because of a breaking change between iOS6 and iOS7, which we had no way of knowing ahead of time.
We have set processes for how we handle daily builds and public releases and we cannot change those without larger implications unfortunately. The good news is that we do provide a way to deal with things like this via daily builds, and in a way that is usually very quick. Most other platforms are not able to turn things around this quickly.
And while we would like to make daily builds available to everyone, we do have a business model we have to keep working so that we are around for the long term.
David
David, I did not know this. So when a Pro subscription runs out you can’t keep using the last daily build you had access to on your last day of Pro until the next Public Release? This is a major PITA and possibly against the law in many countries around the world. You can’t take back something that has been paid for in full. Hope you can reconsider this decision. IMHO, a Pro user should be entitled to keep using the last daily build that he/she had paid access to. That would be a fair business practice. Thanks for hearing this out.
ksan - there are 3 points to make here:
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You may be forgetting we are a service and you pay in the form of a subscription. If your subscription expires, you lose access to the service. Since we now have a free tier (Starter), in this case the paid service is being able to publish apps with certain Corona builds. I don’t see this as being different from any other service/subscription out there.
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Previously, when we did not have a free/Starter tier, this would have been a moot point. When your subscription expired, not only would you not have been able to build with a daily build, you would not have been able to build *at all*. Again, not different from any other service/subscription. Interestingly, now that you are able to build with a public release when your subscription expires you actually have a fallback option.
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Finally, as a side note, think about the complexity of a system that would have to keep track of what the latest daily build was when anyone’s subscription expired (or whatever the last daily build was you used when your subscription expired) and had to keep giving you access to that daily build but none after that. And each person’s "last’ daily build was different. This would not be tenable. And also would not be in the spirit of a service/subscription model.
Hope you understand. We aren’t trying to screw anyone - just run a business. The fact that you can always fall back and actually publish apps for free, with a public release build that is fully updated every 2-3 months is actually a great thing in my opinion.
David
@David Rangel
1.) How are you offering a “fallback” solution when the public SDK is broken? Apple is pushing its developers to build against iOS 7 and adoption rates are far exceeding iOS 6. While building against 6.1 is an option, when that application is ran on iOS 7, the functionality is still broken. With that being said, massive portions of your “fallback” solution (public build) have broken a lot of your developers applications; much like my own. You are so worried about your reputation and building Corona’s future that all you are doing is creating a horrible and negative impression from your members. I have been in the software game from many years and when major issues arise and prevents your product or “SDK” from working properly on allegedly supported systems, you patch them; not force them to pay for something you are promising in your own documentation and website. Like I said before, holding back a major compatibility patch for graphics 2.0, while awesome but totally unnecessary and useless when it comes to graphic design, is a really poor business decision… At the end of the day, it is your reputation that is on the line not mine and when more developers become annoyed that their apps and reputations are ruined because of your decisions, you will never get that segment back again.
2.) It might have been a moot point regardless because the service only costed $249/349 a year… So you offer a broken “Starter” option and then bump the price up to $600 a year. Am I missing something or are you really just forcing us to upgrade? Lets be honest also, there is a lot more that is broken in the 1202 “public build” than we are letting on to and you know that there is massive issues with iOS 7.
3.) This is not complex at all. You already check against our user accounts for subscriptions on Corona launch. You create a new table in your database and save the version number on-load and check against it. I could literally write that function in 10 minutes… I am not sure who you are trying to fool, but anybody who has a background in development will see right through that comment.
The solution is to just start using Marmalade. If paying $120 a year and having a stupid splash screen in the app is the only requirement, well what the hell, that seems like a great deal over your $600 solution. I mean why not join the ranks of the wildly successfully PopCap, OMGPOP, Lima Sky, Square Enix, EA, Chillingo, etc… And the promo they have to get 3 months free + a windows dev token + developer Lumina device for free is outrageous! I hate to say it, but I might make the switch.
@jmarchalonis, you couldn’t have said it any better.
Being able to build with the free starter pack? That’s great, but can you not see how major text fields are? We’re not complaining about an extra feature that we’re lacking here, we’re talking about “text fields”. You do understand how basic this is, right?
In my opinion, offering the starter pack to build with, comes along with you upping your subscription from $349 to $588. Yes, once the subscription ends, you definitely have the right to stop providing me with access to Daily Builds, but how on earth can you justify blocking me from building with the last Daily Build I had which I paid for?
Plus, if you want it to be a subscription in such a blunt manner, then why do I not have the option to subscribe for 1 month? Why do you bill me annually?
Once again, how does falling back to a broken build make sense to you? Please try to understand that I’m not talking about a build that doesn’t have enough “features”, I’m talking about a build that can not even provide me with basic “text field input”.
I totally understand that you all need to make money, but I guess my main issue is with the fact that I am a hobbyist and the bump up from 249/349 to 600 is hard to justify where I am not even bringing in that much with my two apps. So that makes me go to the free option but evidently fixes do not occur for it reliably for me to put something out to the public quickly if an issue occurs.
I think most of us on this thread love Corona, have invested a bunch of time and resources into the Corona ecosystem, and most importantly we want to see it thrive as a mobile application platform. I also would hope that you all look at an option for the hobbyist to keep their pro level at a more affordable price. With more of us having our pro subscriptions expire soon it will become more of an issue.
Thanks!
Travos
Just my 2p worth…
There appears to be a number of Corona devs who, having tried to make Android pay, have not succeeded. Myself included.
When my subscription expires I will have to think carefully about renewing. I do not want to pay Pro for cross-platform when my only interest is iOS. I hope the old indie subscription will return!
@David Rangel
Two days and no response… I am waiting to hear a response as to whether you intend to fix the broken public SDK… Since we don’t have to sign an NDA with Corona, we are free to take this conversation elsewhere. If you don’t give a sufficient explanation and timeline for a fix to make the public build compatible with iOS 7, I have no problem writing a lengthly article and passing it to all the tech blogs out there. If you don’t want to listen to your developers and treat them with respect, I am sure you will be more motivated when your reputation is on the line; just like mine, which you ruined because of your business practices.
@MAS1, twomack33, appductionstudios, ksan
If you want to send me comments about your current experience and frustrations with Corona for this article, if it shall come to pass, let me know. You are more than welcome to have your voices heard on a grander scale.
jmarchalonis - thanks for the followup on this. Yesterday was a busy day and I did not get to it.
To answer your question - we have fixed this issue already, it is in daily builds. We will roll up all the changes in daily builds into a public release as soon as possible. There are tons of things going on that have a bearing on this, like the new graphics engine, and we cannot put out a public release at a moment’s notice. But it will come.
I am very sorry your development is being disrupted by this. Keep in mind it happened because of a breaking change on Apple’s side. That is not your fault, but it isn’t ours either. You can clearly fix this in your app today, by using a daily build. Or you can wait a bit and use the next public release. And while it affects you, it doesn’t affect all (or probably even a majority) of our developers.
Having a bug in a platform is not a new thing - we all have them. So if you want to go ahead and write about it, feel free. There isn’t much we can do about it and most developers already understand how these things work.
If you want to discuss further, please feel free to email me directly: david AT coronalabs.com
By the way, for those of you that think Pro is too expensive, we now have Basic too (but beware, it does not include daily builds access).
@ DavidRangel
Thanks for the reply. You seem to just be talking in circles rather than address that issue directly and not reading what i even said for that matter; you just keep repeating what I already know. Its not about a bug, it is you forcing us to give you money by holding the patches hostage… Your answer is cough up the money and shut up; thanks for making that crystal clear.
As for the basic membership… you have got to be kidding me right?! So you took the free membership and increased the revenue limit, which anybody and do by subscripting to a higher plan when needed. So you are trying to goat members into giving you money for getting nothing over the free membership; that is even if that the free membership still exists. With that move, you have just shown how low and greedy this company really is. You should be ashamed of yourself, i mean, how disgusting and pathetic can you get?
And I will definitely be writing that article… I will send you a link personally when i do and I will be sure to mention your new “basic” plan… unbelievable.
* I will not write you directly and i will tell you why… i want the developers who use Corona to see how poorly you treat them. Not only that, but how greedy and money hungry you are.
jmarchalonis - I don’t think you paid much attention to what Basic is. It adds IAPs to Starter. Clearly it is not the same thing as Starter, that would not make much sense 
I didn’t try to go in circles - I thought I was clear: we cannot do a “patch” right this instant. Hostage taking does not enter the equation. We are aware of the issue and it will get pushed to a new public release as soon as we are able to do so.
Feel free to write the article and send us a link. We are always open to feedback.