Corrupt App Store binaries

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An explanation from Marco Arment about what happened to his Instapaper update for iOS last night. After downloading the update, the app would just crash on launch.



  • lucascott

    I love how he goes all gonzo on the App Store as if they are trying to ruin all these poor unfortunate developers in some malicious plot. Geesh dude, take a pill

    • jEN

      He got swamped by 1-star reviews shortly after, so while it’s probably no conspiracy on Apple’s part, the corruption did damage his App Store reputation.

    • StetsonG

      I think it’s kinda justified. It’s a combination of the fact that it appears to users like the developer is responsible, and that the developer is completely powerless to do anything about it.

      Some better detection of a corrupt download and an appropriate message like “The App Store encountered an error downloading this app, please try again” would go a long way. Instead it looks to users like a bad update from the developer.

  • Steven Fisher

    I remember last year we had an update rejected by Apple for crashing on launch. It did not crash on launch for any of us. It turned out the code signing process after we submitted it to Apple had broken the executable.

    Submitting it a second time fixed the problem.

    Since then, I’ve been crazy stressed knowing that Apple’s process can break down at unexpected places. It seemed inevitable that sooner or later, it would break between review and store rather than between build and review.

    I feel sorry for Marco. It’s a terrible thing to break customers’ trust like that, not helped at all by it not being your fault.

  • http://www.johncblandii.com John C. Bland II

    I’ve had other apps do this regularly, last being ESPN.

  • http://twitter.com/dimoss Michael D

    I’ve had something similar happen to my app around 2 years. My binary and the review passed, however was corrupted on the app stores end. I had to re-upload my app and wait for the re-approval to get it fixed.