While no shortage of Americans are waking up slightly hung over after a joyous July 4th celebration yesterday, Apple’s App Store is having its own share of problems today as it tries to get back into the groove of a normal routine.
Thanks to a nagging encryption glitch, scores of freshly updated iOS apps have begun crashing Thursday in a widespread development that has confounded and frustrated many iOS device owners.
“Last night, within minutes of Apple approving the Instapaper 4.2.3 update,” Instapaper creator Marco Arment reveals on the Marco website, “I was deluged by support email and Twitter messages from customers saying that it crashed immediately on launch, even with a clean install… Lots of anxiety and research led me to the problem: a seemingly corrupt update being distributed by the App Store in many or possibly all regions. And this is happening to other apps, not just Instapaper, updated in the last few days.”
Known affected apps also include:
- GoodReader
- Readdle Scanner Pro
- Angry Birds Space HD Free
- Gaia GPS
- Pair
- Redshift
- Flick Soccer
- iBike Moto
- Please Stay Calm
- Pinball Maniacs
- Stack the States
- Threadnote
- Checkout Helper
- Metronome+
- Phoster
- Melodies Pro
- MoPho
- SMARTReporter
- PDX Bus
- CommBank Kaching
- CincyMobile
According to GoodReader, the problems began when Apple adjusted its “app distribution engine.”
“Ever since that change there are ongoing problems at Apple’s end,” the developer writes. “These problems result in a number of customers receiving a damaged binary which doesn’t start after updating apps on their devices… While in theory Apple’s servers must be ready to distribute the new app binary by the time they start sending update notifications to users’ devices, something goes wrong inside Apple’s distribution servers, and customers receive a damaged binary instead of the good one that we’ve sent to Apple. The exact reason is up to Apple to determine.”
Apple hasn’t yet commented on the matter, but is now working with a number of developers to bring about a quick resolution to this iOS app debacle.
