Apple’s Reliance On Unpaid Labour Must End!
A company that swims in money, yet relies on volunteers to do their quality assurance.
Not once. Not twice. Many times I’ve said this. Apple needs to ramp up their software testing. It was cool and fun asking their users to beta test every build of iOS, macOS every other OS they release as soon as early betas to release-candidates back in the day, but it’s 2022, and we’re looking at a company doing so insanely well, I’m sure it’s far beyond what the two Steves and Tim ever expected.
Apple and its users are not a small club of like-minded creative individuals, square pegs in round holes. No more! The two have been long ago separated. It’s Apple, and its consumers. The former makes money, the latter spends money. Yet, Apple is still blurring the line with the one thing I feel has been unethical since day one. It’s my one major criticism of a company I otherwise am I fully behind — the Apple Beta Software Program.
My criticism is not unfounded. The Apple Software Program launched for the first time in 2016, and it has plagued countless devices year after year. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a software engineer, I get the appeal of trying stuff out early. But let me reiterate, my criticism of the program is not unfounded, expectably because I am a software engineer. I also did plenty of software quality assurance over the year to know how valuable a skill it is. My speaking up against it, it’s not reference to its existence but rather the lack of remuneration and recognition from Apple for all the work these users do, the mountains of invaluable data they generate that simply cannot be generated in any other way.
Beta means half-baked, unstable software!
Every software engineer will tell you, beta software is not great. In fact, it carries a lot of risk, and generally the expectation of developers is that plenty of things will break. Clearly not as bad as alpha releases, which break more often than not, but beta is like an early trial batch of home-brew. If you get sick, you have no-one to blame, if it tastes funky, it was definitely in the cards and if you end up on the loo six times the night after, nobody forced it on you. Beta software is software that most people recommend staying away from. Heck, when it comes to Apple, many will claim that even the launch-day release is something you’d want to avoid by a mile.
The general concept behind the Beta Software Program is entirely legit, though, and from a software engineer’s perspective makes a lot of sense. Frankly, by the end of this article I believe most consumers would also see the value in it, but that’s precisely the point — there’s value in it, and Apple doesn’t recognise that in any meaningful way.
The newest beta bricked your device? Oh well, go to the Apple Store, they’ll fix it for you for free because at least it doesn’t void the warranty. Hard to tell what happens though if your machine one or two years older than the warranty period. I suspect you’re on your own.
Data loss because of the beta? Well, Apple will claim you should generate automatic backups all the time, that’s what Time Machine is for. OK, but what if you forgot or the backup didn’t happen because of the faulty beta? Again, you’re likely on your own, crying over the loss of whatever you lost, having only your cats to comfort you. Except they won’t because they’re cats and cats are selfish little bastards!
All this time, Apple is gaining tons of intel on what went wrong and why. Logs, screenshots, all the juicy stuff engineers need to address the issue, so it doesn’t happen in the future. It’s basically like having millions of quality assurance staff for free! And then comes Jenn Simmons of Apple’s Safari Team and asks people to give even more info on why “Safari is the new IE”. Hah! Looks like I wasn’t the only one to coin that. Seriously, how much more unpaid labour is Apple going to ask for?!? At this rate, we’re doing everything for them, only to have it sold back to us at not exactly low prices.
Apple needs to pay up!
Apple’s developer program costs $99 a month. I am actually one of the weirdos who thinks that’s fair. We do get plenty for those 99 bucks a year, though there’s also the Apple Tax if we release a paid app. But that’s another rant for another day. But strictly thinking of developers here, I think the correct thing to do by Apple would be that with every beta software install, the developer should get credits towards their developer program membership. This could cover the membership itself, and if they spend enough time testing all these betas, even lower — even if by 0.5 or 1% their Apple Tax on apps sold. It’s not like suddenly Apple would not still get a decent cut and would lose considerable revenue.
When it comes to users, who are not developers, just part of the Beta Software Program, their risk, and efforts would still generate Apple credit, but perhaps would be App Store credits or time credit for one or more of Apple’s streaming services. In the grand scheme of things, it would still be infinitely cheaper for Apple to do this than to hire 10 million (actual number may be higher or lower, but certainly large) QA staff. From where I’m standing, it would be a win-win scenario. Users would have some incentive to try betas and perhaps even submit manual error reports, knowing their time and effort will result in actual subsidised or free Apple services. All the while, Apple would have an army of testers they can rely upon.
What kind of compensation do I receive for testing? This program is voluntary, and there is no compensation for your participation. — beta.apple.com
As it stands, the Beta Software Program is an entirely one-sided transaction. It’s exploitative, and this needs to change.
If Apple truly wants their users to be at the core of its quality assurance, it must turn it into a partnership, just like it did with the App Store.
It’s completely unacceptable, and I would argue, borderline illegal, but most definitely unethical to ask one’s customers to try out a product that carries unknown risks as its being built and provide no remuneration of any kind to said customers. I am not aware of any other industry apart from the software industry doing this. I don’t see Elon sending out half-built Teslas for everyone to drive at their own risk. Medical trials are also paid, and nobody ever came to my door with a half-baked ham for me to try to have an opinion on.
This would be entirely different if we’d be talking about final and released software. That’s where using system logs to improve it, makes sense and feels very much both ethical and legal. But that’s not the case with Apple. What they’re doing is entirely shameless and is way below any company of their size and reputation.
As stated before, I like Apple, I live in an Apple ecosystem and I have yet to find a reason to change that, but as it stands, there is a mounting bill that Apple hasn’t been paying to some of its users, and I believe it’s about time they started. Forget the Epic battle. This is the one the world should be talking about — systemic user exploitation. And no, I am not part of the Apple Beta Software Program, and won’t ever be, until they value my time and effort just as much as I do, or else I’d have to say I am “volunteering at Apple” and I’d be deserving all the ridicule I could get for that! 😂
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Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!
