I have several apps in the Mac App Store that work with a USB tethered SLR camera. Up to Mojave, everything was fine; everything worked.
Then comes Catalina, and suddenly, cameras are detected, I can read the pictures from them, delete them, but when I want to take a shot,
it fails without any error message. So I thought I would just edit the text on the App Store and make the first line read (NOT YET COMPATIBLE WITH MACOS 10.15 CATALINA due to internal Catalina bug)
But the problem is, I can only edit the text by submitting a new version. doing that would prompt all existing users to update, and the new version that I can submit, still won’t work, as the bug is an internal Catalina one.
Apple has confirmed they suspect it is a bug, but also now report that they might not answer until 2020.
Meanwhile, customers using Catalina are buying my app that doesn’t work, and post 1-star reviews and complain to me.
With Apple releasing a new macOS yearly, it would make sense if they would allow developers to indicate with which MacOS their apps are compatible
so that new users simply don’t see apps that are known to be not compatible with Catalina. It’s a bit ridiculous that I have to support 5 macOS versions, as all of those are still in use, as older macs cannot be upgraded beyond 10.10.
Now, my only option is to release a new version that still doesn’t work on Catalina, and then in the text state something like “Sorry, we did update this app, but it still doesn’t work on Catalina”. That makes me look like an idiot and like will piss off existing customers that upgrade to a still not working version.
Apple staff you can talk to are always very polite and understanding, but also unable to do much when it comes to features that aren’t available to everyone.
To further add to my frustration, I also have to update software that works perfectly fine still on Catalina, because the previous version is now 3 years old.
In effect, I have to compile and upload a new version, set all the translations (manually) and submit exactly the same app as before, just so that it gets a newer date.
Failure to not release exactly the same as was there before but with a new version release number within 30 days results in the App being taken offline.
Sorry for ranting, but I just needed to get some frustration out.
The Mac App Store can be great, but also a royal pain in the you know where.