SAM! 
Zack WhittakerHow app changelogs should be vs. how app changelogs usually are.
Dirk Hohndel@zackwhittaker
Yes. Yes. 100* yes.
saf
Christopher Duffley - KC1WXP@zackwhittaker Agreed! Why do so many of them just say that they’re bug fixes and nothing else?
ocdtrekkie@ChrisDuffley @zackwhittaker Because one of these two apps cares what you think, and the other does not.
Robin Kunde@ChrisDuffley @zackwhittaker because most of the changes are behind feature flags or A/B tests so most users may never see them
Tony Arnold@robinkunde @ChrisDuffley @zackwhittaker a clear signal that they either don't understand their users anymore, or have grown to the point that they're trying to manipulate the last few drops of whatever they're selling from the people using their app by tweaking things that won't make anything more than a single digit percentage change in behaviour.
IMO A/B tests should be conducted on your testers, not on your users.
stilescrisis@tonyarnold @robinkunde @ChrisDuffley @zackwhittaker Even if you know exactly what you want to build, you should roll out features gradually, behind feature flags, so you can disable them if something unexpected goes wrong.
Sören@robinkunde @ChrisDuffley @zackwhittaker I’m still baffled that App Review allows this at all. What are they reviewing, exactly? Do they create multiple accounts to increase the likelihood that they go through all permutations?
(IME: no, they make one account.)
Badri@ChrisDuffley @zackwhittaker something I heard once (from a developer, I think, unless it was a blog) was, "if you describe and change and they don't find it they'll reject the update, so it's better to just be vague so they'll let it through" 🐞
Topher 🌱🐧💚@zackwhittaker I want to boost this a thousand times.
Benjamin Hollon 🇺🇸🇲🇾🇮🇳🇦🇫@zackwhittaker
I know one app that uses its changelogs to tell you how to turn on automatic updates. :P
I know one app that uses its changelogs to tell you how to turn on automatic updates. :P
Amit Serper@zackwhittaker
This reminds me the time at the end of trump's presidency where his daily schedule said something like "the president will have many meetings to the benefit of the American people"
@darkuncle
This reminds me the time at the end of trump's presidency where his daily schedule said something like "the president will have many meetings to the benefit of the American people"
@darkuncle
suzietchi@zackwhittaker And there are some apps like @signalapp who push it to another level. They write detailed release notes in local translations and not just English.
Just another rakyat 🇲🇾
sortius@rakyat @zackwhittaker "sir, this is a Wendy's"
Saagar Jha@zackwhittaker Ew, Mastodon uses JIRA?
Osma Suominen@zackwhittaker
Apart from the obvious, I like the use of "we" to show that there is real work done by real people behind the improvements.
Apart from the obvious, I like the use of "we" to show that there is real work done by real people behind the improvements.
SheldonThere was a really humorous iOS RPG game called Lowlander that was a spoof/tribute to the classic Ultima computer games.
Consistent with the humor of the game, some of the release notes sometimes just said "Made the game more awesome!"
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lowlander-ii-lowerlander/id1211784030
Lowlander II: Lowerlander
LOWERLANDER is the sequel to Flat Black's 2015 somewhat-acclaimed retro-rpg, Lowlander! "Lowlander II is a great game, possibly the most enjoyable, largest and best produced game of its type available that’s not got the Ultima name attached to it. " - My Boxed Universe **** 1/2 stars from TouchA…
Matty J@zackwhittaker @lee_
I wonder sometimes if there actually aren’t any fixes in some of these bigger apps. Just some micro changes to make it different enough to get a new release through. So it appears in your updates list. Like sneaky awareness advertising.
I wonder sometimes if there actually aren’t any fixes in some of these bigger apps. Just some micro changes to make it different enough to get a new release through. So it appears in your updates list. Like sneaky awareness advertising.
CarlRJ@m4tty_j @zackwhittaker @lee_ my impression is there’s a bunch that are doing their app with sprints, and so every two weeks (or whatever) there’s a new version, and it fixed •something•, but they can’t be bothered to take ten minutes to take the titles from the fixes included and format them into the release notes.
alapite@zackwhittaker I wonder what goes through the heads of developers who put out these anodyne “bug fixes and performance improvements” changelogs. If they’re too lazy to put down anything more specific, how can they expect users not to think the “updates” aren’t worth having? I’m not going to waste my time and bandwidth downloading “updates” that could well be stripping away existing functionality rather than adding anything new.
@alapite @zackwhittaker they know most people have automatic updates on.
@chucker @zackwhittaker Is that really the case, or is it just another piece of received wisdom no one has bothered to verify? Assuming verifiable evidence does exist in support of this assumption, it would also be interesting to determine what the numbers look like over the course of the last 5 years or so. Apple has the numbers, but I doubt they’d be willing to share them.
JamesGecko
David@jamesgecko @alapite @chucker @zackwhittaker
and it's, unfortunately, generally a fairly safe assumption that most users won't read most text you write.
(We write detailed release notes for our apps because that's what we like to see, but I'm not convinced the time spent makes any "business" sense)
and it's, unfortunately, generally a fairly safe assumption that most users won't read most text you write.
(We write detailed release notes for our apps because that's what we like to see, but I'm not convinced the time spent makes any "business" sense)
Markus Fritze@zackwhittaker @donmelton sometimes you need to e.g. fix a crash ASAP and taking the boiler plate what’s new text saves at least a week to the release you otherwise need to get translations into 40 or so languages, especially if the localization team is busy.
Sébastien Barbieri@zackwhittaker 200% right!
Ajaj Alawneh 
@zackwhittaker Hell yeah!!!!!!!
Eivind Hjertnes@zackwhittaker @donmelton I wonder if I can get away with saying that at every single standup at work?
Rairii@zackwhittaker i despise changelogs like the second one, so i actually try and write decent length changelogs
Barry@zackwhittaker yup. Spotify, every time. Boring AF. How would one know if one might “miss a thing” if one doesn’t know what “thing” is?
juicylucy@zackwhittaker sometimes I feel like they don't change anything but still push out updates so that the end user feels "safer"
Dave/Loebas 
@zackwhittaker Changeligs how they are supposed to be. Talking about the mastodon app that is
Gik 
| 💙➡️🇺🇦@zackwhittaker frankly surprised they don’t find a way to plop an ad in there instead.
ChrisM@zackwhittaker never do they say who the "performance improvements" are for ... I.e. the vendor or the user...
Braw ☕🏳️🌈@zackwhittaker holy heck they even thank you for reading the release notes. mastodon is truly a user-oriented and respecting platform 
Ashley Porciuncula@zackwhittaker This is the difference when release notes are treated like a part of the product, dev and product are in communication with each other, and users are given respect as intelligent human beings.
@zackwhittaker unfortunately too true 🙁
Kool@zackwhittaker
Slack comm:
PM: @.here anybody pushed something new in this version ?
Everybody: …
(Repeat bi-weekly)
Rachel@zackwhittaker ironic. They likely don't include details on the assumption that it's too boring and technical for most people, while only people who would actually read the Google calendar change log are ones who would want and understand it
And it's definitely not because they're lazy and don't wanna write release notes.
John W. O'Brien@zackwhittaker "Bug fixes and performance improvements" is still better than the What's New for most apps; either some variation on "We're always changing things, so make sure to enable automatic updates!" or just a description of the app.
Mark Levison@zackwhittaker Evernote has pretty good release notes. They’re clear and have sense of humour
Markus Mann@zackwhittaker Immerhin bringen sie bei Amazon bei der Gelegenheit jedesmal auch gleich den Müll raus. Sagen sie.
Laurentiu Dascalescu@zackwhittaker All big tech company are doing like that, instead to provide details about improvement, are just adding fixing stuff, and sorted out with details. I believe it is used at some point to avoid further discussion about progress of the app on forums, chat's, etc. and to avoid criticism.
Like you I would be happy to know about every little improvement of the app, but not all company's want us to know everything what they are doing.
Richservo 
@zackwhittaker I mean you’re comparing a dev that gives a shit to google.
Fact Tech Solution
Richard Earney@zackwhittaker @donmelton one of the Apple Design evangelists once said to me, “they should be a love letter to your customer”
Bill Seitz@zackwhittaker to be fair, on an older/larger product, the full list (which is often available) is very long and themeless.
Rachael Ava 💁🏻♀️YouTube: We fixed the tubes that power YouTube, explored the edges of the known universe, and added more cat videos. 
leviathan3k@zackwhittaker
I'm more likely to update when the developer is honest about what I'm about to get.
I'm more likely to not get a regression of features this way.
IN71@zackwhittaker google has millions upon millions of users. 99% of which never once look at app update notes. It does not benefit them to make the effort to write them up.
Should apple force it? Maybe.
Just saying there is no reason at all for them to do so on their own
Should apple force it? Maybe.
Just saying there is no reason at all for them to do so on their own
Nihl L'Amas@zackwhittaker I waited 10 years for Twitter to add basic no information from the debeloper support, and now it's finally here! Thank you Elon!
Zacky Ma@zackwhittaker Usually the latter, and those who write lots of jokes without getting to the points, give me a very arrogant vibe.
Joe Heafner@zackwhittaker I’ve said for years that Apple should make detailed changelogs a requirement. Devs love to hide or omit changes to the subscription model.
Michael@zackwhittaker Yes! Also, I always appreciate when a project actually has a handwritten release note. Not just an automatically generated list of either PR or Commit subject lines. Because in most cases, I have no idea what the majority of them mean to me as a user.
ijk64✅@zackwhittaker yes! (If too many, give a link)
toolbear#🪧@zackwhittaker
Also, compose them by hand. Fully automated changelogs are a fool's errand. By all means source the handwritten summary from automated changelogs, commit messages, or pull request descriptions, but you must curate, rephrase, and combine that disorganized firehose of irrelevant details into something coherent.
Also, compose them by hand. Fully automated changelogs are a fool's errand. By all means source the handwritten summary from automated changelogs, commit messages, or pull request descriptions, but you must curate, rephrase, and combine that disorganized firehose of irrelevant details into something coherent.
Tanner B 🆓🇵🇸@zackwhittaker Working at a larger company with a hundred engineers working on the same app, adding features gated by A/B testing and levers, has made me realize not feasible to expect release notes from apps like that. Bug fixes are probably the only thing we could meaningfully put in release notes, but higher ups probably don’t want us writing about bugs in release notes