Apple needs to put a stop to this nonsense
I believe that the flourishing App Store is one of the things that has made the iPhone a success. With just a few taps you get access to apps that do things that you never knew possible, and yet quickly become a vital part of your day to day life.
But there is one aspect of the App Store that annoys me -- the stupid release notes that some developers write for apps.
Here's an example from this morning, Google's YouTube app:
YouTube iOS app release notes
That's all the information I get for a 206.2MB update to the YouTube app.
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It's not like Google isn't capable of writing pretty detailed release notes. Here's the release notes for Google Chrome.
Google Chrome iOS app release notes
Lots of information there.
Now, it's not that I crave detailed release notes -- although if I am being hassled by a bug, it's good to get a heads-up that it has been fixed -- but it's not the place for jokes, quips, and stupid stuff.
I know that app release notes are also not the best place to convey information about the app since many users have updates applied automatically, never seeing the release notes.
Got nothing to say? Then keep it to a minimum!
Here are two apps, one with minimalistic notes, and another that goes into great details.
Examples of release notes
To be clear, things are a lot better than it used to be. There was a period of time where developers were clearly trying to outdo one another by posting all sorts of rubbish into the release notes. Thankfully, those times are now over, but app release notes could be a lot better, a lot more detailed, and a lot more useful than they currently are.
And if developers can't do it, then Apple should enforce it as part of the app approval process.