Apple Insider has reported that Apple has nixed plans to allow third party developers to have access to Software Update. But this represents only one crack in the crumbling facade of Apple developer relations.
In addition to denying access to Software Update, Apple has recently enacted the following changes:
- Updates of Xcode will no longer be chopped fine and spoon-fed to developers, as they only end up screaming and throwing it on the floor.
- A random developer will no longer be picked to appear on Phil Schiller’s Celebrity Pajama Party, which may be the unkindest cut of all as this week features Jennifer Connelly and Eliza Dushku.
- Apple will no longer hang out at the Gas-N-Sip with developers since developers took to dating that rich girl from across town who, Apple feels certain, looks down on “cutters”.
- Discounts given to developers on new hardware will be discontinued. Instead, developers will be allowed their pick of the over-ripe bananas at Caffe Macs.
- Mmm… Jennifer Connelly and Eliza Dushku…
- Instead of detailed documentation on system calls, developers will receive a gag postcard showing Avie Tevanian in a field straddling two giant pumpkins and reading “Greetings from Big Balls, USA.”
- Developers will no longer receive pre-release versions of Mac OS X, but they will receive notification that Apple is not touching them and then they will be asked if that bugs them.
- The release of Mac OS X after Tiger (code named Lion or, possibly, Electric Zebra) will include every software feature currently being produced by a third party developer, driving them all out of business.
Developers, meanwhile, have not taken these changes lying down. A consortium of Apple developers has decided that, in lieu of coding for the Mac ever again, they will instead drink too much, overeat, listen to “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell over and over while staring wistfully at a framed picture of Steve Jobs, sighing heavily.
Only the latter two actually represent any change from their current behavior.
According to other developers not affiliated with the consortium, Apple really was never their friend anyway and they were just pretending to be friends with the company because they felt sorry for it.