I'm sure most of us are aware of the XcodeGhost issue from awhile back. For those unaware, the short version is Xcode downloads are notoriously slow from Apple's servers to the point that a lot of people end up trying to find other mirrors for the MASSIVE 10+GB updates that come out. The problem is that these mirrors can contain malicious versions of Xcode which inject malware into built apps.
So... I've been trying to update to Xcode 12.5.1 since yesterday now. I've tried the download on the internet connection at the office (Spectrum) which has download speeds well past 100Mbps. The download gets limited to ~700KB/s with occasional spikes around 2MBps. Why? I run a speed test and our bandwidth is perfectly fine. Note this is trying to download directly from the App Store.
I let the download do its thing, but of course it errors out right at the end and the download somehow is corrupted.
Off to download the XIP directly: https://download.developer.apple.com/Developer_Tools/Xcode_12.5.1/Xcode_12.5.1.xip
Well, same problem with TERRIBLE download speed. Check bandwidth again and no issues on my end. So I decide whatever, I'll try it on my home internet connection.
Start it up again and let it run overnight.
AGAIN it gets ~95% complete and errors out. This is now on 2 completely different ISPs.
How can such a large company have such an issue with file distribution? I feel like a pretty competent individual and I've yet to find any reasonable way to deal with these updates. It's literally every single Xcode update that comes out.
Come on Apple, give the developers (who help support your ecosystem) a hand here...