Software is, in a sense, a living thing. Apps don’t die once they’re released. They evolve. This evolution is driven by updates, which are ideal for fixing potential bugs and adding—or removing—new features and functionality.
In this context, a developer named Dylan McDonald posted a message on X, complaining about an increasingly common situation in the App Store: Many developers update their apps, but when you try to find out what has changed, they don't provide any information.
Click on the image to go to the original post.
Instead, developers focus on generic messages like the one in the image. The example shows updates to Google mobile apps, which is true for many others. They typically display “bug fixes and performance improvements” messages without further details.
McDonald complained that this was inconvenient for him and tried encouraging his fellow developers to include details about updates.
Other users countered that if a developer provided detailed update information, the App Store could reject it if it didn’t comply with Apple’s censors. McDonald responded that he’s been doing this for 10 years and has never had a problem with the App Store.
Information Is Power
I don’t know if you usually read the details of software updates on your devices. Personally, I don’t. I have so many apps installed on my smartphone and computer that I “trust” the developers. I trust they’re fixing bugs and improving performance with each new version.
A good example of how the release notes for an update can be very detailed and informative. Source: Reddit.
There are times, though, when I check those details to find out if a new feature has just arrived on my smartphone, for example. It’s not frequent, but I do it occasionally.
It’s true, as McDonald said, that many developers don’t show that information—at least not in the App Store. At the other extreme are platforms and developers that, logically and fortunately, offer all kinds of details regarding each update.
This is the case with Microsoft, which, on its support website, shows all the details of each new update of its operating system. A good example is the “small” last update of Windows 11, which shows that this company takes documenting changes seriously.
The document for each update is a great source of information for users but, above all, for Microsoft itself, which can keep a detailed record of the changes.
Information here is power (ipsa scientia potestas est), as Sir Francis Bacon (supposedly) wrote in his 1597 Meditationes Sacrae. It may not matter much to many, but all these details can be beneficial—especially for those in charge of these updates.
The problem is that the details of updates are usually not entertaining. Although the texts of these “release notes” are descriptive, they’re often formal and, let’s face it, boring.
But there are (increasingly) exceptions.
Slack Gives Updates a Different Tone
As I said, many good examples of development releases provide detailed information about the changes from one version to another. However, the tone, while informative, can get tedious.
Slack’s release notes are… different.
Slack has long had a very different tone. Slack release notes have become a topic of discussion on Reddit because some hate them and some love them. And rightly so—they don’t look like release notes. Or almost don’t.
There are good examples in the release notes for the Android version of the app. In the latest update, dated Dec. 5, 2024, the information displayed is as follows:
“No big news this week. Apparently, there are no small news either. We are still working hard, in case you are wondering; it is just that the work is focusing on what is happening behind the scenes. We are preparing for everything that is to come.”
Admittedly, the person responsible for the text at least has a funny way of saying that the changes are so dull it’s almost better not to describe them at all. But this is a problem because while the text can be entertaining, it doesn’t help us know what has changed.
Sometimes, however, apps provide details that are relaxed and entertaining. This was the case with a previous version, dated Sept. 11, which introduced, for example, a change in the behavior of one of the buttons:
“There are certain things that are simply worth admiring. For example, great works of art, animals in their natural habitat, a person trying to parallel park... However, overly long URLs are not one of these things. So we would like to apologize for not including Continue or Cancel buttons on the ‘Check this link’ popup.”
Slack uses release notes more as a marketing tool than as detailed, technical documentation of changes between releases. It also likely conducts detailed internal documentation.
The Wonderful World of Release Notes
While Microsoft and Slack are diametrically opposed examples of how update information is delivered, release note management is a world unto itself.
Discord is an example that combines the two approaches. This company takes a relaxed tone in its press releases, as was the case with the most recent update on Dec. 5. The tone of the text is casual but also informative, combining details about changes with making the information digestible.
Many styles and examples highlight how details can become a hallmark of platforms.
LaunchNotes, which provides enterprise communication and organization services, shares several examples of apps and platforms with eye-catching release note announcements on its blog.
For example, Airtable uses its tool to organize updated information in one of its “air tables.” HEY, the email client, offers a visual timeline and brief descriptions. Notion, for its part, uses its app to display this information.
GitHub employs a very visual, Tumblr-like format for concisely displaying release note details. 1Password and Stripe use concise, informative language, while Postmark’s short blog format and categorization stand out.
While some apps in the App Store don’t show details about changes, many others do—and do so in exemplary fashion.
As Sir Francis said, information is power.
Image | Firmbee.com (Unsplash)
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