These are tough times for app developers. A few weeks ago, several of them received an ultimatum from Apple: they must update their app within 30 days or it will be removed from the App Store.
It seems that the company has decided to get rid of everything Software which hasn’t been updated in the past two years, although the App Store Improvements support document refers more loosely to removing “obsolete” apps.
At this time, no one knows how many apps may be removed for obsolescence or for any of the other criteria listed in the support document.
Also mentioned is the removal of apps that no longer work as intended, which one would expect to already be in place in a rigorous and well-run store that customers can trust.
But there are probably many. An estimate calculates that about 70% (over 1.5 million apps) haven’t been updated in three to five years, and many more haven’t been updated in the last two. It could become a massacre.
The theory with which Apple justifies this crusade is difficult to contradict. Nobody wants the App Store to have Software expired and badly done, and separating the wheat from the chaff is a sensible idea that should have been implemented years ago.
But basing this on the time elapsed since the last update is wrong. This theory will include perfectly working apps whose developers don’t have the time or resources to push an update to an app that is no longer profitable (or perhaps never was). At the same time, it will remain easy to be attacked by unscrupulous scammers with a few extra programmers on staff.
The fact is that it is not so easy to fix the problem of apps malfunctioning. The sad reality that the owners of all the department stores in Software is that significant resources must be devoted to quality control of Software or accept that most of them will be bad.
Deciding what is of acceptable quality and what is not requires humans at work or a very sophisticated algorithm. A scalpel is needed, not a mallet.
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A few days ago it appeared that texas-holdeman iOS game developed internally at Apple, appears to violate the company’s own rules.
It was last updated in October 2019, which could change in the near future if Apple wants to avoid the embarrassment of removing or making an exception with its own app. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of classic games about to be wiped away.
Going through the game folders on my iPhone and iPad, it’s surprising how many apps I found that haven’t been updated in the last two years. I sincerely hope this changes, but these might be removed soon:
Please note that all of these games work fine on my devices. In fact, the worst thing you can do is not download any of the ones you haven’t played, and you risk seeing them disappear next month.
There will be hundreds of other examples. Look for the games you like the most and you will surely find more. I have to stress that Apple is not going to take them away from you. Users who have already downloaded one of these apps will still be able to use it, and it may even be back on the App Store in the future if the developer updates it. But new players will be denied the pleasure of discovering many of these games, which is a shame.
This is the second time so many apps have been removed after 32-bit apps were removed in 2017, and it’s hard not to notice that Apple, at a corporate level, doesn’t really like games. .
It’s unfortunate, because the company, seemingly by accident, just over a decade ago found itself in possession of the biggest gaming platform in history.
With its low entry cost and rich user base, the App Store has attracted many game developers. India talented and there was an unprecedented burst of creativity.
The fruits of this creativity must be preserved, and it is worrying that Apple has shown so little interest in doing so. It wouldn’t be particularly difficult.
As Craig Grannell, contributor to iGamesNewsApple could have easily acquired GameClub, a subscription service dedicated to restoring and preserving classic retro games, properly funding it, and integrating it into Apple Arcade.
But Arcade was designed from the ground up to focus on the new. Even later, when the company added older games with slightly new names, it focused on classics that were still going strong, rather than ones that were in danger of disappearing from the store.
In most cultural contexts, age is not seen as a negative thing. We still watch silent films and read poems in dead languages. Many artists fought to be taken seriously during their lifetime.
But Apple, for some reason, still thinks games have a shorter lifespan than a good pair of shoes. And removing treasures from the App Store is nothing short of cultural vandalism.
Original article published on igamesnews.
