蘋果應用商店崩潰事件幕后英雄
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????上周四晚些時候，蘋果（Apple）公關部門向包括《華爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal）旗下的科技博客All Things Digital在內的多家新聞媒體發布通告，稱蘋果（應用程序商店）曾出現“暫時性問題”，影響了“一小部分用戶”，這個問題目前已經得到“修正”。 ????不過，蘋果公關部門顯然把馬可?阿蒙德忘了。阿蒙德是微博客Tumblr的創始人，并開發了大受歡迎的應用程序Instapaper 。作為一名iOS開發者，他的個人博客、Twitter賬號（@marcoarment）以及“開發與分析”播客（Build and Analyze）都擁有數量龐大的粉絲團。 ????或許這真的是個錯誤。 ????蘋果公告發布的前兩天，阿蒙德就首先發現了這個問題。當時許多Instapaper的用戶抱怨，升級到最新版后，Instapaper會在啟動后立即崩潰。阿蒙德立即向蘋果的應用程序審查團隊發出了郵件，他還在Twitter上將問題曝光。兩個小時后，一個正常可用的Instapaper在應用程序商店重新上架。 ????不過，阿蒙德很快意識到，這個問題不僅僅影響到了自己的應用。在接下來的兩天時間里，他整理出了一份名單，其中的應用程序數量竟然超過了100個。這些程序的升級版在提交給蘋果時運行正常，但當其在應用程序商店上架，就無法運行了。阿蒙德警告用戶和開發者在問題得到修正前不要更新應用程序，他還向蘋果發出了一封用黑體字寫就的緊急請求。 ????所以，當阿蒙德在其他人的博客上看到蘋果的聲明后，他忍不住在自己的個人博客上對其進行了反駁： ????“所謂‘一小部分用戶’是站不住腳的：根據我在7月3日統計的數據，僅僅Instapape的問題就影響到了超過2萬名用戶，而且，還有其他120多個應用程序受到波及，其中不乏知名應用，例如‘憤怒的小鳥’（Angry Birds）、GoodReader、雅虎（Yahoo）和《洛杉磯時報》（LA Times）等。” ????所謂“暫時性問題”，實際上是蘋果應用程序商店運營四年以來發生的最為嚴重問題，這場災難被《連線》雜志（Wired）稱為“Appageddon”。正向阿蒙德之前預言的，問題的根源在于蘋果的一臺服務器出了問題，該服務器負責將蘋果的數字版權管理保護軟件添加到即將發布的應用程序中。不過總而言之，阿蒙德對蘋果相當寬容。專業MacWorld網站有報道稱，蘋果也許會刪除許多應用在這次系統崩潰期間蒙冤得到的一星差評。阿蒙德寫道：“我不會想到這一招。假如蘋果真這么做，將大大有利于修復該公司與受影響的開發商之間的關系。” ????阿蒙德對于那五十來個爭相報道這起事件的科技記者就沒那么寬容了。這些記者大都對阿蒙德的貢獻只字未提，甚至試圖將該報道偽裝成自己發掘出來的獨家新聞。在一連串阿蒙德稱之為“改寫搞定”的Twitter消息中，他曝光了這些媒體報道。讀者可點擊此處閱讀相關報道。 ????譯者：項航 |
????Late Thursday, Apple (AAPL) public relations reached out to several news organizations -- including the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital -- to alert them that what it described as a "temporary issue" that affected "a small number of users" had been "rectified." ????Apple PR apparently neglected to reach out to Marco Arment, a co-founder of Tumblr, the creator of the popular Instapaper app and a iOS developer with an unusually large following through his blog, his Twitter account (@marcoarment) and his Build and Analyzepodcast. ????That may have been a mistake. ????It was Arment who first spotted the problem two days earlier when Instapaper users began complaining that his latest update crashed immediately every time they launched it. Arment e-mailed Apple's App Review team and started "yelling" about it on Twitter. Within two hours a working version of Instapaper appeared on the App Store. ????But he soon realized that the problem was more widespread than just his app. Over the next two days he compiled a list of more than 100 apps whose updates worked perfectly when they were submitted to Apple but were corrupted when they arrived at the App Store. He warned users and developers not to update their apps until the problem was corrected, and he issued an urgent request -- in boldface -- to Cupertino: ????So when Arment saw Apple's press statement on someone else's blog, he couldn't resist posting a correction: ????"It's probably worth nitpicking 'a small number of users': Based on my cumulative stats for July 3, Instapaper's corruption alone probably affected well over 20,000 customers, and there were over 120 other apps affected, including some very big names such as Angry Birds, GoodReader, Yahoo, and the LA Times." ????Apple's "temporary issue" was, in fact, the App Store's worst bug in four years of operation -- a meltdown that Wired dubbed "Appageddon." It was ultimately traced, as Arment correctly anticipated, to an issue with a server that applies Apple's digital rights management protection to apps before they are released. ????Arment was pretty easy on Apple, all things considered. He pointed readers to a MacWorld report that the company might be removing the one-star ratings many apps had unfairly received during the meltdown. "I wouldn't have predicted that," Arment wrote. "If they do, it will go a long way toward repairing their relationship with the affected developers." ????He was not so kind to the more than four dozen tech reporters who piled onto the story, often without giving him credit or -- even worse -- trying to make it sound like it was their scoop. In a series of tweets he calls "Rewrite Bingo," he covers the press coverage. You can read it here. |
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