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Comment by kccqzy | Hacker News Reader

It might be an unpopular opinion but I still have apps from iOS 4 that works perfectly fine on my iPhone running iOS 9. To me this is a testament of the great engineering that allows this iOS 4 app to be binary compatible with iOS 9. Sure the apps won't use the latest APIs and they look a little blurry (because screens have gotten larger) but they still work fine and I don't want apple to kill them, making a cloud backup restore impossible.

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But if the developer has, for whatever reason, chosen not to update the app to support retina displays, larger screens, and anything else that would benefit the user, isn't that an indication that the app is abandoned? Even if the functionality doesn't fundamentally change, it's not a good sign if the look of the app has been neglected.

I'm sure the vast majority of apps this affects are mostly rotting away with broken functionality. Worse still, there are many apps that could definitely benefit from newer APIs. There's no doubt that this new ruling is going to have some edge cases where old, but perfectly functional, apps are lost - but there is a grace period that developers of these older apps can work in to update them and keep them listed.

This is a good compromise - Apple issues a store-wide ultimatum to developers and any that are still interested in keeping their apps listed will update them. Those that aren't will need to do nothing. If any of your apps disappear, it stands to reason the developer has abandoned it.

I think his point was that "developer has abandoned it" doesn't imply the app has no value.

Maybe they should keep the app in the store, but de-list it and don't include it in search? Require a direct URL or invite for those. It would remove the clutter, but still allow people to get legacy apps that still function, but that you don't want showing up randomly to app store users.

That's almost what they're doing. If you already have it you'll still be able to download it after it's de-listed (as has always been the case), but no new users will be able to find/buy it even with a special URL.

If the developers don't want to do basic updates every few years, I'm not sure Apple should bother giving them special magic URLs for the 2 new people each year who might want it.

An extreme example of a dev abandoning an app would be the Monster Hunter app by Capcom. Back when iOS 9 dropped, it introduced a bug where Monster Hunter just wouldn't launch at all. Unfortunately, I can't find an archived version of their release notes (the only one thats been archived is from 2014 [0]), but Capcom basically said "This app does not, and will never work, on iOS 9". Under Apples old rules, this was cool. No worries. But under the new rules, this app would be removed immediately.

I don't think apps should be removed for having non-retina assets, or not supporting 4.7" or 5.5" displays. But if the app truly doesn't work anymore, and hasn't for a while, then I would consider that being abandoned. Even then, Apple will be working with devs to try and get the issues sorted

>"We are implementing an ongoing process of evaluating apps for these issues, notifying their developers, and removing problematic and abandoned apps from the App Store. " (from the email sent to developers)

[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20140923001007/https://itunes.ap...

You, as a user, will still be able to see the app in your purchased list and download the latest version, according to the FAQ. I think this is only removing them from the app store for new sales.

If you've downloaded it, it's still going to be available to you. It's just not going to be listed in the store for others who haven't downloaded it.

I don't think this is really what Apple is concerned about or rather what you mention falls into a grey area.

There are a large number of apps which just don't work. They crash, depend on web applications that don't exist anymore or they've been questionable from the very beginning.

Apple can and should clean up apps that don't fall into a grey area without creating an inconvenience for users like you.

Which apps? Just curious!

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