Apple: friendlier

A couple of years ago I got all huffy about how Apple had withheld the Leopard beta released at WWDC '07 from developers who had paid for access to Leopard betas but could not attend WWDC, only finally releasing it to other Apple Developer Connection Select and Premier members about a month later - meaning a lot of developers who had paid up for early access to Leopard were unnecessarily left a month behind WWDC attendees in getting their apps Leopard-ready.

I was not a happy bunny, as many panicked Scrivener users noted in their e-mails to me asking if my beta-rage meant I was likely to abandon Scrivener and the Mac platform (which was never in question). I like to think I have grown and calmed with age in the past couple of years (although my shouting at an ancient Cornish driver the other day may provide evidence to the contrary), so this year, with the coming of WWDC and the announcement that there would be a "near final" build of Snow Leopard available to attendees, I just accepted that I would have to wait another month or so to get access once more. (Despite my vow never to pay for ADC again, it would be a little irresponsible not to do so, as I have to ensure that Scrivener is Snow Leopard-ready for the day of its release... so I reluctantly handed over the cash again this year for the Snow Leopard betas.) Indeed, unlike two years ago, the Apple developer website didn't even claim that ADC Premier and Select members would get the "latest builds", so the signs weren’t exactly auspicious.

So imagine my surprise when I logged into my ADC account the other day to find that the latest, WWDC, build of Snow Leopard was there, ready and waiting for download - and had been there since the 8th June, the very day it was made available to WWDC attendees. I nearly fell out of my chair. Or at least I swivelled in it a bit. I don’t know if there were a glut of other developers such as myself who complained bitterly at Apple two years ago - I certainly didn’t see much complaining about it anywhere else online - or if Apple just decided they should give all paid-up developers equal opportunity to get their apps Snow Leopard-ready, but whatever the reason, given the loudness of my lamentations and weilaways two years ago, I figured I should at least give credit where credit’s due this time around. Okay, it should have been like this in the first place, but at least Apple have got it together now and that makes me (for once) a happy bunny. So, thank you Apple for sorting this out.

So Snow Leopard is now ready on my other system and waiting for me to make sure Scrivener works fine on it (early tests are good), which I will be doing in earnest very shortly, in the midst of the full-on development on 2.0 in which I’m currently immersed. (And to those waiting for news on 2.0... Sorry, but I’m holding back on further announcements or feature peeks until nearer the time. 2.0 is still slated for an end-of-2009 release, and suffice to say that I think a lot of Scrivener users are going to be very happy...)