A problem with Apple's App Store is causing newly updated apps to crash upon launch.

The issue was discovered by Instapaper creator Marco Arment, who received a deluge of tweets and emails from the app's users once version 4.2.3 went live on 3 July.

Customers reported the app had begun to crash on launch, with the issue unable to be fixed by deleting and reinstalling the application.

The cause

"This didn’t make sense - obviously, Apple had reviewed it, and it worked for them,” detailed Arment on his blog.

"My submitted archive from Xcode worked perfectly. But every time I downloaded the update from the App Store, clean or not, it crashed instantly.

"Lots of anxiety and research led me to the problem: a seemingly corrupt update being distributed by the App Store in many or possibly all regions."
Instapaper isn't the only affected app, either. Arment has compiled a list of more than 20 recently apps that seem to be crashing on launch, including Rovio's Angry Birds Space HD Free.

Take heed

Shortly after emailing Apple and tweeting about the issue, Arment found that Instapaper was once again working as it should, although he's been left unclear as to whether the app was fixed "because I made noise, or simply because time passed, which may, for instance, expire a cache with the bad data."

Arment does have some words of warning for those prepping updates right now, though.

"If you're a developer, and you have a non-critical update pending release, I suggest waiting a few days for this to presumably get sorted out before releasing it.

"Because if this happens to you, all of your most active users, the people who will install updates within hours of them becoming available, will be stopped in their tracks.

"They'll think you're careless, incompetent, and sloppy for issuing a release that doesn't work, and they'll leave you a lot of angry 1-star reviews."

[source: Marco.org]