I really want to report bugs to Apple. In fact I do frequently report bugs to Apple via the WebKit Bugzilla. I want to report bugs to Apple so badly that sometimes I write entire blog posts here about Apple bugs. But Apple's Feedback Assistant is a frustrating nightmare, for a number of reasons, and I'm refusing to use it. Back in November I blogged about the Apple developer boycott of Feedback Assistant, which also has an official web page. I won't rehash the list of reasons for the boycott from the earlier blog post; if you've used Feedback Assistant frequently, you can probably come up with a similar list off the top of your head. The point of mentioning the boycott again now is that Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) starts next week. At that time, developers will have our maximum leverage. Apple needs us as an unpaid QA labor force to test their beta operating systems, find bugs, and report them. The news media covering WWDC is also interested in developer impressions. WWDC is the perfect time to strike, that is, to go on strike.
Working within the system, filing bugs against Feedback Assistant itself, has proven futile. Over many years, decades even, countless bugs have been filed against Feedback Assistant and its predecessor Radar, yet Feedback Assistant remains fundamentally terrible, hostile to developers. At best, it has received a few minor, superficial, palliative tweaks—lipstick on a pig, as it were—but nothing to alter the relationship between Apple and developers. The bug reporting system doesn't treat developers with respect, as valuable contributors to the system.
We know that Apple can do better. Apple has done better with the aforementioned WebKit Bugzilla, for example, which is not a perfect bug reporting system by any means (my pet peeve is that it doesn't allow multiple simultaneous file attachment uploads), but it's certainly tolerable. You can actually search for existing WebKit bugs! What a concept, eh? You can have direct, intelligible, intelligent conversations with WebKit engineers. You're not asked to pointlessly "verify" unfixed bugs with the latest version of Apple's software… ok, I'm starting to rehash the reasons for the boycott, so I'll stop. My point is that Feedback Assistant is the absolute worst bug reporting system I've ever used, from any company or organization. Apple can do better, much better, but they refuse to do better voluntarily, so if we want Feedback Assistant to be better, we have no choice except to force Apple into action. That's what the boycott is about, refusing to file any bugs at all until Apple concedes that they need to improve the bug filing system in specific ways (listed here).
Some people will declare the failure of this effort prematurely—vacuously, before WWDC has started—claiming that the boycott will never work. I urge you to ignore them, because they preach a self-fulfilling, self-defeating prophesy. Frankly, the "nothing better is ever possible" people are allowing the entire world to go to hell. Perhaps the boycott will fail, but how could we know for sure unless we try? There's no shame in earnest failure, but I'd say there's great shame in utter complacency. The boycott doesn't even take a lot of individual effort. On the contrary, it takes almost no effort, indeed less effort than filing Feedbacks. Just don't file Feedbacks. If you're deeply dissatisfied with Feedback Assistant, this may be your one and only opportunity to be part of a collective effort to change it. Let's try!