'Ask Apple' Launches As the Company's Newest Support Series For Developers

A new resource featuring interactive Q&A's and one-on-ones for developers has launched today called "Ask Apple." 9to5Mac reports: Apple announced the new developer series in a newsroom post today: "Developers participating in Ask Apple can inquire about a variety of topics, such as testing on the latest seeds; implementing new and updated frameworks from Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC); adopting new features like the Dynamic Island; moving to Swift, SwiftUI, and accessibility; and preparing their apps for new OS and hardware releases. Ask Apple is free of charge and registration is open to all members of the Apple Developer Program and the Apple Developer Enterprise Program."

Ask Apple will kick off with the first round of "opportunities" from October 17-21. Apple says it will be an ongoing series. 9to5Mac highlights what you can expect from "Ask Apple": - Ask questions to various Apple team members through Q&As on Slack or in one-on-one office hours
- Q&As allow developers to connect with Apple evangelists, engineers, and designers to get their questions answered, share their learnings, and engage with other developers around the world
- Office hours are focused on creating and distributing compelling apps that take advantage of the latest in technology and design
- Developers can ask for code-level assistance, design guidance, input on implementing technologies and frameworks, advice on resolving issues, or help with App Review Guidelines and distribution tools
- Office hours will be hosted in time zones around the world and in multiple languages

Here's a question

[quonset]

Why is it you can't do a simple copy/paste of a picture from a Windows machine into an iPhone? No really, try it. You cannot directly copy a picture from Windows then paste into your storage on an iPhone.

Instead, you have to go through an 8-step process [lifewire.com] to perfom such a simple task. Even better, you can't do copy/paste from a Mac to an iPhone either. You have to go through the same 8 steps.

40 years and Apple can't do this one simple thing.

Re:

[bruce_the_moose]

copy paste to an iPhone, let's give it a try... Copy the text I just typed. Pickup my iPhone and go to notes. Paste. Yep, no problem!

I honestly don't give a fuck about the windows direction.

Re:

[bruce_the_moose]

Oh, you said image. ctrl-shift-cmd-3. Pick up the iPhone. Paste. Done.

Re:

[NoMoreACs]

It's for your privacy and safety and security and cute puppies! Won't you please think of the children!?
Also, did you remember to install iTunes? I presume that's still a thing Apple forces on users.

Apple doesn't even offer iTunes anymore, except for Windows.

Apple really does need this!!

[oldgraybeard]

I spend as much time figuring out what hoops I need to jump through to get an app signed and linked to a working deployment profile as I do working on the app. And they are changing things again, again at this very moment.
Apple development environment is an ever changing and moving target. And since things change so fast most of the doc, search results and samples are out of date and much is so simplistic as to be unhelpful.
I added bluetooth printing to a client in house Adhoc app and had to rewrite sample stuff a brother engineer provided, he had stopped working on it in the middle since he was assigned to more pressing stuff at brother. But his work was helpful, and thanks again for brothers help with things.
Don't get me wrong, Apple has also been helpful when you can get to a technical person.
On a side note, I feel the search engines are being buried in marketing sites all with the same outdated info on technical subjects(almost all word for word) that take up multiple spots in the search results. All to display ads and get ad clicks. Sales and marketing crap like that are burying real technical info and changing how useful the internet is today, compared to what it used to be.

First Question

[RegistrationIsDumb83]

What y'all spending that 30% fee on? It's certainly not on dev support.

Number one question:

[thegarbz]

Why does your developer documentation suck so bad! Say what you want about Microsoft, but the MSDN documentation is in a god tier league compared to the incomplete and borderline useless garbage Apple publishes.

Re:

[NoMoreACs]

Why does your developer documentation suck so bad! Say what you want about Microsoft, but the MSDN documentation is in a god tier league compared to the incomplete and borderline useless garbage Apple publishes.

You must think there are no victims of MSDN "documentation" here. Talk about a maze of twisty passages, all alike; that's the MSDN Tech Library!

On Slack? Oh gees...

[coofercat]

Slack is about the worst place in the world for a Q&A. I joined the Elastic Search Slack a while back to ask some questions. All I found were channels and channels of people asking questions, but getting no replies. Once your question goes off the top of the screen no one's really going to see it, so it goes unanswered. You're as well to just open the window and shout your question to the world as ask in there.

Slack most definitely has its place, and I've used it extensively at $work for several years.

Apple Mail app tagged announcement as spam

[drnb]

I noticed the email announcing this program. It was in my junk mail folder, on a Mac using Apple's Email application.