I don't see why Apple don't invite the developers of high-ranking iOS apps to an early-access program in order to keep their best apps up to date, and not invite anybody else to the beta.
Because every publisher, not just the "blessed" ones, has software in the store that could be negatively impacted by a new iOS release's changed APIs. And every publisher has potential use cases for new features Apple adds in a new iOS revision.
Apple ships major iOS releases at the same time as shipping the newest iOS device. They want a customer to unwrap their new device and have free roam of the store to download/buy as much as they can. They want the software to use the new features in iOS and they don't want their customers downloading crap that is broken.
And as a developer who isn't even close to "high-ranking" (My one paid iOS app maybe pulls in $50 on a good month) it's still not fair to me for someone to one-star my app and say "doesn't work on iOS 6" even when I've had no chance to test it before general release.
Because every publisher, not just the "blessed" ones, has software in the store that could be negatively impacted by a new iOS release's changed APIs. And every publisher has potential use cases for new features Apple adds in a new iOS revision.
Apple ships major iOS releases at the same time as shipping the newest iOS device. They want a customer to unwrap their new device and have free roam of the store to download/buy as much as they can. They want the software to use the new features in iOS and they don't want their customers downloading crap that is broken.
And as a developer who isn't even close to "high-ranking" (My one paid iOS app maybe pulls in $50 on a good month) it's still not fair to me for someone to one-star my app and say "doesn't work on iOS 6" even when I've had no chance to test it before general release.