There's a smack of truth to the talk about Apple not being helpful and in some cases gets political. Who gets seeded and who gets support is at the whim of some rather green managers. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the fault is Phase - I mean they must be on the bad side of Apple since they didn't get support for their RAW files in Core image or Aperture either (while Leaf and others did). I hope I'm wrong but Apple probably will never support Phase backs and it probably has to do with one or two stubborn middle managers.
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You pay, you get the seeds. No green managers involved. You get one support incident with the smaller developer package, 8 with the bigger one. For application development you shouldn't need one anyway.
I had Leopard installed on my main system about 2 month before release. That means it was stable and complete enough to be used 2 month in advance and available to anybody willing to pay at least 500$ a year.
On every single bug I mailed, I've got a response.
I'm sure that Apple sees neither Phase, Leaf, Sinar nor Hassie as competition, their market is just so pittingly small from Apples point of view. If Apple would see them as a real thread, Apple would just buy them. All of them at once.
When a company is not "OS X.YYYY" ready it's more likely the companies fault than Apples.
Most likely there are no resources to work on it, just enough to do with existing problems.
Or it's deemed not worth to invest in the current software, because the next release is already around the corner.
Or the developers just can't get it running.
Probably the guy who wrote an essential part of the software is no longer with the company.
Or the product manager just forgot about it or decided to wait for the final release (offically because he wants to be sure that the OS will not change, in reality because he has no resources and hopes that all will work out well) or whatever.
I'm not saying that this is what exactely happens in each and every company, but its not Apples fault, if a company has no supposedly compatible product with a new OS on release.
Supposedly, because there can alway be last minute changes in the OS, or things not found while testing, because users use a product different than developers do. But problems resulting from this should be sorted out quickly.
Apple does include RAW support for cameras they think there is a demand for or what they think are key cameras like Canons and Nikons top range. 1000 sold worldwide per year is no demand in this terms. And with Apples current strategy digital backs do not seem rated as "key systems", which may change with a new product manager or change with shift of public interest.
If your product is not one of those included by Apple, you will have to ask for being included and provide samples and documentation. Many companies may fail at this step, because it has to be organized and somebody has to do it, "but hey I have better things to do than write documentation for Apple, rev 7.5.8 has to be finished, and nobody will use Aperture anyway, because our super duper what ever it is called is so much better". Probably Aperture support is not really wanted if the software is not free, because it might result in lower sales in the end.
I really doubt that there is a conspirace from Apple at work here. From my experiences in hard- and software development it's usually a lack of resources (financial and/or manpower) or nobody feeling responsible.
No matter what, the only thing you you can Apple blame for is that they update thei OS, how can they dare ?
Wow what triggered this ? I think I have find a therapist