Apple’s bug reporting tool which Apple provides for iOS and Mac developers is called ‘Radar.’ To register a complain or a note regarding a bug or a problem by these developers is then called ‘filing a radar.’ For long the developers have been facing a lot of problems with the tool itself which comes with many issues. Apple, however, has been turning a blind eye to the complaints about it. Now, the developers have stated a ‘Fix Radar or GTFO’ petition to get the company’s attention.
The ‘GTFO’ may be rather surprising for many readers but it has a history to it. Apparently, the well known Apple developer Michael Jurewitz would respond to any query about Xcode issues with a ‘have you filed a radar?’ This eventually led to the creation of a meme which read ‘Radar or GTFO’ meaning that the first thing you are supposed to do if you encounter a problem as an Apple developer is to file a Radar.
However, ‘filing a Radar’ hasn’t been an easy thing for the developers. A developer doesn’t get to know if a similar Radar has been filed before and no significant progress is witnessed regarding the bugs that are filed by the developers. This, naturally, frustrates the developers who have long been asking Apple to fix it. Since Apple chose not to listen, they have now filed a petition titled ‘Radar or GTFO.’
The interesting thing about this petition is that a number of eminent app developers have already signed this petition, which just goes on to show the magnitude of the problem with this tool. The petition that has been filed reads,
‘By making radars so hard and painful to file, most developers end up not filing them. For every radar that is filed, there are many more that developers would file but don’t consider it a big enough issue to be worth the time. It may be a small bug or feature request, or it may be a common issue that we figure someone else has already filed so there’s no point wasting our time telling you about it.’
In a way, getting the tool fixed up helps Apple itself too in that Apple will then be able to help its developers in a lot better way. And that is pretty much summed up in the concluding lines of the petition, ‘So please fix Radar. You’ve worked hard to give us great APIs, a great language, great documentation and great developer tools. Please now focus your attention on giving us a great tool to help us help you.’
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