Constant Contact Labs Developer Blog
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Loss of Control Posted Tuesday, December 15, 2009 0 Comments
Maybe it’s a sign I’ve been in the SaaS business for too long…
...but I’m having a hard time dealing with the challenges of managing the distribution of our iPhone application. I feel like I have been transported back into the 1990’s when I actually shipped software to customers and had to deliver bugfixes and such things to the customer and get them to install those fixes.
Yikes! It’s like a bad nightmare. I note that some recent younger hires have ONLY experienced the world of SaaS and web applications that can be patched and fixed whenever we want. As I like to point out them, you’ve never had to fix a bug for a customer running version 3.5.4.2 from 3 years ago on a code base you aren’t familiar with - so that 5am upgrade really isn’t so bad…:-)
Now with the iPhone app, we not only have the challenge of getting fixes out to customers, but we have Apple to act as gatemaster. So now you have a bugfix you want to get out to your customers and you’re waiting for Apple to “approve” your app and you have little recourse but to sit and wait and hope they give it their blessing. I do appreciate that the app store informs you when there is a new version of the app available, but still - when that customer is having a problem and you have a fix, it is hard to know there’s nothing you can do but sit and wait.
Does this bother anyone else?
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