Apple warns it will remove apps from the App Store that haven't been “updated in a significant amount of time” and is giving developers 30 days to update them
what you need to know Chris Kerr / Game Developer : Apple warns App Store devs outdated apps will be pulled from sale Sarvesh Mathi / MediaNama : Why developers are unhappy with Apple removing outdated apps Luke Baker / Pocket-lint : Apple to remove App Store games that haven't been updated in two years Ashwin / gHacks Technology News : Apple warns developers that it will removed outdated apps from its App Store Abhijit Ahaskar / Livemint : Coinbase CEO calls Apple's stance on crypto apps a potential antitrust issue Macworld : Apple will start removing ‘outdated’ App Store apps Trevor Mogg / Digital Trends : Apple seems to have embarked on new purge of neglected apps Leigh Mc Gowran / Silicon Republic : App Store removal claims cause uproar among developers Aaron Astle / Pocket Gamer.biz : The latest App Store notice is causing concern for indie devs Ewdison Then / SlashGear : Apple App Store Has Started Pruning Outdated Apps Marie Dealessandri / GamesIndustry.biz : Apple to remove apps that haven't been updated in a “significant amount of time” One Degree : One Degree Monday April 25 2022 José Adorno / 9to5Mac : Apple now removing outdated apps from the App Store, developers complain Alex Hernandez / Techaeris : Apple is cleaning house in the App Store by removing outdated apps Marvin / Digital gefesselt : Deine Kaffeepause vom 25.04.2022 Igor Bonifacic / Engadget : Apple may have begun a new push to remove outdated software from the App Store Jordan Middler / Video Games Chronicle : Apple is reportedly removing App Store games not updated in 2 years Nehal Malik / iPhone in Canada Blog : Developers Upset Apple Removing Outdated But Working Apps Jonny Evans / Apple Must : Apple begins the App Store cull by evicting older apps Lu-Hai Liang / TheGamer : Apple Reportedly Getting Rid Of App Store Games That Haven't Been Updated In 2 Years Alan Friedman / PhoneArena : Apple warns developers: apps that are outdated will be removed from the App Store Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider : Apple warns developers it will pull apps without recent updates from the App Store Nathaniel Mott / PCMag : Apple's Reportedly Pulling Old Apps From the App Store Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Philip Elmer‑DeWitt : Apple purges App Store, developers freak out Tweets: @protopop : I feel sick. Apple just sent me an email saying they're removing my free game Motivoto because its more than 2 years old. It's part of their App improvement system. This is not cool. Console games from 2000 are still available for sale. This is an unfair barrier to indie devs. https://twitter.com/... Emilia / @lazerwalker : .@apple is removing a few of my old games b/c they have “not been updated in a significant amount of time” Games can exist as completed objects! These free projects aren't suitable for updates or a live service model, they're finished artworks from years ago. https://twitter.com/... @protopop : I'm sitting here on a Friday night, working myself to to bone after my day job, trying my best to scrape a living from my indie games, trying to keep up with Apple, Google, Unity, Xcode, MacOS changes that happen so fast my head spins while performing worse on older devices. Kosta Eleftheriou / @keleftheriou : Meanwhile, some of Apple's own apps haven't been updated for much longer than that. Rules for thee, but not for me! https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Fletcher Dunn / @zpostfacto : All these tweets really make you appreciate Microsoft's Hippocratic approach. MS does an absolutely heroic job of backwards compatibility, at high cost. Despite their reputations, Apple is “The Man” bad guy, and MS is the good guy. That's been true for at least 15+ years now. https://twitter.com/... Seth Sandler / @sethsandler : Would the iOS developer experience be better if Apple employees were allowed to create & distribute their own apps? The best products come from user empathy; I imagine it's hard for Apple to create great developer tools when employees can't create and distribute their own apps. Orin Thomas / @orinthomas : A tool works. A tool does a thing. A tool is used by others. A tool doesn't suit our continuous consumption model. https://twitter.com/... @raymondedwards : @nicklockwood A lot of people have offered evidence this is not the case. It certainly *looks* arbitrary given that, but my speculation is they are trying to get these apps out of the store before they become incompatible with iOS 16. Some big changes coming maybe? Nick Lockwood / @nicklockwood : I won't deny Apple puts developers through a lot of bullshit, but it seems to me that the most likely explanation why they are forcing some apps to update and not others is that those apps are using old ad frameworks that violate the privacy rules: https://www.theverge.com/... Daniel Jalkut / @danielpunkass : @nibroc @SethSandler There are lots of workflows that 3rd party developers have to contend with that internal app developers presumably don't have to. I think it's a reasonable question to ask whether increased empathy, for everything from getting provisioning set up, to reporting bugs, would help. @bibliovoreorc : This is incredibly punitive to small teams and solo devs, who don't have the cycles to both work on new projects and create continual post-launch content for old ones, and for whom even a small drip of legacy sales can make a real difference. https://twitter.com/... @thomasfuchs : Games for 40-year old platforms are easily playable today. Games released 8 years ago on iOS? Lost forever. https://twitter.com/... Daniel Jalkut / @danielpunkass : @nibroc @SethSandler It's also widely suspected, if not known, that Apple uses a huge variety of internal design and debugging tools that are not available to 3rd parties. I mean, it's fine, there's an argument in favor of that, but PLEASE don't pretend it's a level playing field. Miguel de Icaza / @migueldeicaza : @peterfriese @SethSandler From the periphery, it doesn't sound like they have a modern developer relations program. Still very old school, and not much active engagement with the community, building and sharing prototypes, education. They seem to want to project a unified look. @qvxmiko : 2.2 has taken so long that geometry dash (and all related free versions) may no longer be available on both the google play store and apple app store, if gd is still not updated by the end of this year 🎉 @hnshah : That's one way to get a whole lot of product managers scrambling. https://www.theverge.com/... @protopop : There was no indication of what kind of update needs to be made. Just that the app must be “updated” or be removed. Is there some security or technical issue an update will solve? Are arbitrary updates to fully functioning apps a necessary part of our development workflow? @protopop : I can at least try to understand getting rid of 32 bit apps years after 64 bit became standard. Or scam apps. or apps that collect data. Or broken apps. But this is a perfectly good game. No surprises. No tricks. Just something I worked very hard to make and love very much. @protopop : Now I need to dig up my project file, update the Unity version to make sure it meets the App Store requirements, rebuild, retest, resubmit all to get the exact same game in the exact same place it was before. For me this kind of surprise is the worst part of making games. Paul Haddad / @tapbot_paul : @stroughtonsmith Unless Apple steps up and provides Microsoft levels of legacy support they've got to at least hide old stuff. Obviously they should do a better job of it, but at their scale... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : The constant removal of older games from the App Store is just another bridge burned with game developers, who are far less invested in or tied to Apple's platforms than app devs. If Apple's dominance ever does come crashing down, they'll have no friends left to pick them back up Peter Friese / @peterfriese : @migueldeicaza @SethSandler I often wonder how their Developer Relations team works. They seem to be in the marketing org. Having a zeroth customer (who can veto launches!) is one of the most effective strategies for getting your DevX right. Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : It's not an imposition only on app developers. Apple uses its App Store monopoly to continually obsolete users' libraries of purchased and free apps, depriving customers of software they owned, which the developers did not wish to discontinue. @protopop : Now I am expected, along with Google's new program, to update all of my games every 2 years even if nothing is wrong with them. Even yearly Unity updates break project so badly they won't run. This is not an insignificant challenge and adds undue stress. Rob Napier / @cocoaphony : @raymondedwards @nicklockwood I keep mulling around this idea. A new platform or the like where they want more apps to be built for iOS 15. I can't quite make those theories coherent, though. I stand by my gut feeling that this is entirely about something internal to Apple, but I'm still pondering what it is. Miguel de Icaza / @migueldeicaza : @SethSandler Yes, I think it would. Just a small internal advocate would do wonders to fix all the showstoppers. Robert Zubek / @rzubek : And now Apple is going to be removing older, complete games as well? Imagine removing movies or music from sale because “they haven't been updated recently”. This is a naive & disastrous approach to the 21st century's most important new medium. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... @kikidoodletweet : For all kinds of things. I bought the Journey game's art book partially because it had 3D VR where pages you scan would have the 3D models start floating around above the pages. Several years later and I have a book with significant missing content because the ap is gone. https://twitter.com/... @jbu3 : Out of all the companies managing platforms for video games, Apple is one of the worst when it comes to preservation. https://twitter.com/... @chunkinator104 : Reminder that big companies aren't just apathetic towards the concept of game preservation, they're actively destroying history by making older games inaccessible just because they can. https://twitter.com/... @keleftheriou : Apple also removed a version of my FlickType Keyboard that catered specifically to the visually impaired community, because I hadn't updated it in 2 years. Meanwhile, games like Pocket God have not been updated by the developers for 7 years now: https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jessica / @ticky : the App Store is already excruciatingly developer-hostile and this apparent new policy is just salt in the damn wound, what the fuck are they thinking https://twitter.com/... Nikhil Pahwa / @nixxin : Really want to see antitrust action against Apple's app store and Google's play Store end their global duopoly and bring accountability to their practices. https://twitter.com/... Max Nichols / @maxnichols : I just love how our medium is sprinting towards a future with no history https://twitter.com/... Dr. Amelia Acker / @amelia_acker : The political economy of platform preservation and its impact on developers deserves more attention. https://twitter.com/... @jobrantjo : This is such a big problem, and the reason why Magenta Arcade - a game we are still very proud of - isn't there anymore. https://twitter.com/... @arclight : Sometimes software is done. I know the World expects growth and change and improvement forever (for free) but sometimes the software is done and it ships and that's the end of the story. ‘Old’ and ‘stable’ are not failure states. On the contrary — they indicate success. https://twitter.com/... @nixcraft : Good god. Apple says they're removing game because it's more than 2 years old and not updated in last 2 year. https://twitter.com/... Tyler Glaiel / @tylerglaiel : this is part of why I never got into mobile games and why I basically don't ever care about releasing mac versions of stuff ever again. Apple does not seem to understand that a game can be “finished” and never touched again, and that not every application needs long term support https://twitter.com/... @mustapha_hamoui : I feel like I need to defend Apple here. People who owned & loved these old games will keep them. (They're not deleting them from my owned apps). Apple is only preventing *future* distribution unless the games are regularly updated for things like security. That's Fair https://twitter.com/... @henrikjoreteg : If you want your work to last as described below don't subject yourself to the whims of a single uninterested gatekeeper (Apple). Apple wouldn't have been able to take down Wordle, for example... https://twitter.com/... @fell_martins : Imagine a world where pieces of art needs constant updates otherwise they will be deleted. https://twitter.com/... @kenneynl : It's getting really easy to hate Apple nowadays. Haven't released an update for your game? Time to throw it in the trash. https://twitter.com/... @mikko : Common cultural artifacts of our time will be utterly unaccessible to future archeologists. https://twitter.com/... @redhuseey : RIP Geometry Dash Mobile players https://twitter.com/... @davewiner : Mozart symphonies haven't been updated in over 200 years, is Apple removing them too? https://www.theverge.com/... Niki Tonsky / @nikitonsky : “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place” WTF @Apple? Apps don't lose their utility in two years! Bogus updates just not to be removed? Who benefits from that? https://twitter.com/... Martin Sfp Bryant / @martinsfp : Surprising that they've only just started doing this. https://www.theverge.com/... @bobbdub : @protopop Yup. This just happened to me too! Removed my app because I haven't updated in 2 years, even it's still getting downloads and running on all devices. It's hard to take time away from current projects to update old ones, just to keep them alive on the store. Glyn Moody / @glynmoody : the loss of this culture is the fault of 18th-century copyright failing in the 21st century: https://walledculture.org/... https://twitter.com/... Lucas / @lucasofsunshine : Don't know why people are mad at Apple for this!! The games are literally too old to run on modern hardware, makes sense for it to be removed! https://twitter.com/... @liamwadde : i will no longer be watching movies that haven't gotten a sequel in the last 6 months, since they have not been updated in a significant amount of time https://twitter.com/... Kate Barrett / @thewaether : the message apple is sending is clear: “don't upload games to our platform unless you want them to become lost media” https://twitter.com/... @rishialwani : This is all sorts of messed up. Evidently Apple doesn't *get* games despite profiting the most out of them. https://twitter.com/... @andrestaltz : The progressive tech mindset is opposed to immutability. It wants all software to be a service provided by developers, and preferably from companies. https://twitter.com/... Simon Barker / @allthecode_ : @protopop I received an email this morning saying the same about one of my apps, it hasn't got any crash reports, still gets downloads after 5 years, doesn't need a v2 and Apple decide it's time to go 🤷♂️ due to swift version changes I don't have time to push a meaningful change @theessem : apple platforms are awful to develop for if you intend to make a “completed” app, such as a game or demo their constant API/ABI breakage along with insistence against open cross-platform standards and incredibly strict guidelines turned me away from developing for anything apple https://twitter.com/... Javier Arevalo / @thejare : What a disgrace. You need to make arbitrary updates to old games, which usually starts a long chain of updating your development setup all the way to buying a new mac & multiple weeks of work. All because Apple's “search algorithm” can't cope with a few million old games? https://twitter.com/... James Montagna / @jamespopstar : Deleting old apps from the store like this is the most lousy possible action for the preservation of arts and media. Sadly, this impacted my work too. Games I developed a few years ago that otherwise function fine on current devices are no longer available for no good reason. 👎 https://twitter.com/... Jordan Starkweather / @jackal27 : Digital storefronts only see the games that populate them as their products, and as long as they have enough items to fill out what they see as an attractive library, they are more than happy to throw the actual creators under the bus. We are seeing more and more of this. https://twitter.com/... @stopskeletons : An absolute tragedy. Apple is one of the worlds leading video games publishers, by virtue of them owning the App Store. And they simply have zero internet in preservation or backwards compatibility. They've killed thousands of games wantonly and they will kill thousands more. https://twitter.com/... Ryan McLeod / @warpling : We can watch defining movies from decades ago or dig up a SNES and play an iconic game... what will we do when Apple has removed most every original and defining game from the App Store? Friends at Apple, this policy and process needs to change. https://twitter.com/... Simen Ø. Gjermundsen / @simen_g : @CraigGrannell I had a fully functional and original game for kids being removed from sale for this reason just a few hours ago. I have simply not had the time the last month to update it and publish a new version. Stupid decisions. Adrian Hon / @adrianhon : Apple want to retain a monopoly on mobile app distribution, yet are awful custodians with little respect for art and culture that doesn't make money https://twitter.com/... Dominic Tarason / @dominictarason : Apple's utterly unhinged games policy: Unless you push out regular updates, your game will be removed from sale. Even if the game is fully complete and doesn't need updating. There's no 'mail us to say the game is complete" option. Just ‘update or perish’. https://twitter.com/... Ryan Silberman / @ryansilberman : This is why lots of games disappear from app stores over time, and why I don't even bother with publishing to Google Play anymore Apple and Google don't care about just letting apps exist. Developers always have to keep working to ensure they still have their spot on the market https://twitter.com/... Simon Willison / @simonw : This is such a bizarre policy decision by Apple. Not every app (especially games!) should expect to be actively maintained https://twitter.com/... Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : IBM solved the OS problem of app backwards compatibility in 1964, providing a blueprint successfully followed by Unix, DOS, Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, and consoles. So it's crazy that 58 years later, Apple has reverted to this model of requiring apps to be continually rebuilt. https://twitter.com/... @sorrelish : I get so mad about this. Some of my favourite games just gone because they weren't being updated. I get that the OS changes and that maybe needs updates but surely that's just paying someone for a couple of days work a year? I watch enough goddamn ads 👀 https://twitter.com/... Adam Konig👾 / @adamkonig : Jumping on this train because I just had one of my games removed for this. Also had to dig up incredibly old code for Pingus to keep it up. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... John Walker / @fourmilab : Apple doesn't understand the concept of software ever being “done”. I have 30 year old C code that works without modification and is in production today. https://twitter.com/... Cathryn Symons / @cathrynsymons : Typical @Apple, a sort of forced obsolescence. It would make sense if the game hadn't been downloaded in 5 years, but not this. They'd probably remove classics books too if they could. https://twitter.com/... @baconbrix : Web: your free project exists forever Apple: the project you pay $100 a year to keep in the store will be removed if you don't upgrade through multiple breaking changes every few years https://twitter.com/... Ste Pickford / @stepickford : Our BAFTA nominated mobile game Magnetic Billiards has long gone from the App Store for similar reasons. In our case we couldn't afford the expensive development hardware, and time, required to keep updating the game every time Apple updated their OS and SDKs. Gone forever now. https://twitter.com/... @hihidanni : Apple's fundamental misunderstanding of games as a “service” instead of something more permanent like a book, movie, or music album, is problematic for small developers and archivists, but I didn't know it was *this* bad https://twitter.com/...
.@apple is removing a few of my old games b/c they have “not been updated in a significant amount of time” Games can exist as completed objects! These free projects aren't suitable for updates or a live service model, they're finished artworks from years ago. https://twitter.com/…
I feel sick. Apple just sent me an email saying they're removing my free game Motivoto because its more than 2 years old. It's part of their App improvement system. This is not cool. Console games from 2000 are still available for sale. This is an unfair barrier to indie devs. ht…
Apple's utterly unhinged games policy: Unless you push out regular updates, your game will be removed from sale. Even if the game is fully complete and doesn't need updating. There's no 'mail us to say the game is complete" option. Just ‘update or perish’. https://twitter.com/...
Apple also removed a version of my FlickType Keyboard that catered specifically to the visually impaired community, because I hadn't updated it in 2 years. Meanwhile, games like Pocket God have not been updated by the developers for 7 years now: https://twitter.com/... https://tw…
We can watch defining movies from decades ago or dig up a SNES and play an iconic game... what will we do when Apple has removed most every original and defining game from the App Store? Friends at Apple, this policy and process needs to change. https://twitter.com/...
@protopop Yup. This just happened to me too! Removed my app because I haven't updated in 2 years, even it's still getting downloads and running on all devices. It's hard to take time away from current projects to update old ones, just to keep them alive on the store.
@protopop I received an email this morning saying the same about one of my apps, it hasn't got any crash reports, still gets downloads after 5 years, doesn't need a v2 and Apple decide it's time to go 🤷♂️ due to swift version changes I don't have time to push a meaningful change
@CraigGrannell I had a fully functional and original game for kids being removed from sale for this reason just a few hours ago. I have simply not had the time the last month to update it and publish a new version. Stupid decisions.
Apple want to retain a monopoly on mobile app distribution, yet are awful custodians with little respect for art and culture that doesn't make money https://twitter.com/...
Sometimes software is done. I know the World expects growth and change and improvement forever (for free) but sometimes the software is done and it ships and that's the end of the story. ‘Old’ and ‘stable’ are not failure states. On the contrary — they indicate success. https://t…
Worth noting Google will do the same thing. (Which reminds me, I need to submit an update to my Android app to reset the clock.) I'm pretty sure what's going on is they are trying to cull apps to limit backwards compatibility. https://twitter.com/...
My first indie game was killed on the app store because of a lapse payment in a developer account. Can't imagine keeping up with this. Imagine an album or movie being pulled because it's old? https://twitter.com/...
Apple needs to improve comms with devs as a matter of urgency. Removing a working game that's a few years old. Why? “App improvement system” is not an explanation. And not telling a dev what updates are needed is absurd. Apple needs indies onside, not to alienate them. https://tw…
Our BAFTA nominated mobile game Magnetic Billiards has long gone from the App Store for similar reasons. In our case we couldn't afford the expensive development hardware, and time, required to keep updating the game every time Apple updated their OS and SDKs. Gone forever now. h…
this sucks, but also a mobile app that is 3+ years old is basically unusable by almost the entire market share. you need to update for new iOS versions, which generally requires updating to your engine (likely Unity unless you're a bigger developer, tbh), etc. given that most of …
IBM solved the OS problem of app backwards compatibility in 1964, providing a blueprint successfully followed by Unix, DOS, Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, and consoles. So it's crazy that 58 years later, Apple has reverted to this model of requiring apps to be continually rebuilt.…
Deleting old apps from the store like this is the most lousy possible action for the preservation of arts and media. Sadly, this impacted my work too. Games I developed a few years ago that otherwise function fine on current devices are no longer available for no good reason. 👎 h…
I get so mad about this. Some of my favourite games just gone because they weren't being updated. I get that the OS changes and that maybe needs updates but surely that's just paying someone for a couple of days work a year? I watch enough goddamn ads 👀 https://twitter.com/...
This isn't unique to Apple or app stores, but I'll just say that I have a 10 year old windows desktop app that I pulled from Git yesterday and it complied and ran without errors. It really doesn't have to be like this. https://twitter.com/...
Apple's fundamental misunderstanding of games as a “service” instead of something more permanent like a book, movie, or music album, is problematic for small developers and archivists, but I didn't know it was *this* bad https://twitter.com/...
This is why lots of games disappear from app stores over time, and why I don't even bother with publishing to Google Play anymore Apple and Google don't care about just letting apps exist. Developers always have to keep working to ensure they still have their spot on the market h…
Jumping on this train because I just had one of my games removed for this. Also had to dig up incredibly old code for Pingus to keep it up. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Digital storefronts only see the games that populate them as their products, and as long as they have enough items to fill out what they see as an attractive library, they are more than happy to throw the actual creators under the bus. We are seeing more and more of this. https:/…
Apple doesn't understand the concept of software ever being “done”. I have 30 year old C code that works without modification and is in production today. https://twitter.com/...
Web: your free project exists forever Apple: the project you pay $100 a year to keep in the store will be removed if you don't upgrade through multiple breaking changes every few years https://twitter.com/...
This happened to me a few months ago. I made a few iMessage sticker apps and finished everything I intended to add. They hadn't lost any functionality, I just had no new content for them; and yet I had to resubmit each one as-is, bar the version number, to keep them available! ht…
An absolute tragedy. Apple is one of the worlds leading video games publishers, by virtue of them owning the App Store. And they simply have zero internet in preservation or backwards compatibility. They've killed thousands of games wantonly and they will kill thousands more. htt…
Typical @Apple, a sort of forced obsolescence. It would make sense if the game hadn't been downloaded in 5 years, but not this. They'd probably remove classics books too if they could. https://twitter.com/...
I'm sorry, but unless there's something dire about this game, this is inexcusable. Not all useful software, especially games, are actively developed, and if 🍎 insists on being the only way to load apps onto their devices, they're going to have to host millions of apps like this h…
I'm sitting here on a Friday night, working myself to to bone after my day job, trying my best to scrape a living from my indie games, trying to keep up with Apple, Google, Unity, Xcode, MacOS changes that happen so fast my head spins while performing worse on older devices.
Meanwhile, some of Apple's own apps haven't been updated for much longer than that. Rules for thee, but not for me! https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
This is incredibly punitive to small teams and solo devs, who don't have the cycles to both work on new projects and create continual post-launch content for old ones, and for whom even a small drip of legacy sales can make a real difference. https://twitter.com/...
All these tweets really make you appreciate Microsoft's Hippocratic approach. MS does an absolutely heroic job of backwards compatibility, at high cost. Despite their reputations, Apple is “The Man” bad guy, and MS is the good guy. That's been true for at least 15+ years now. htt…
Would the iOS developer experience be better if Apple employees were allowed to create & distribute their own apps? The best products come from user empathy; I imagine it's hard for Apple to create great developer tools when employees can't create and distribute their own apps.
@nicklockwood A lot of people have offered evidence this is not the case. It certainly *looks* arbitrary given that, but my speculation is they are trying to get these apps out of the store before they become incompatible with iOS 16. Some big changes coming maybe?
I won't deny Apple puts developers through a lot of bullshit, but it seems to me that the most likely explanation why they are forcing some apps to update and not others is that those apps are using old ad frameworks that violate the privacy rules: https://www.theverge.com/...
@nibroc @SethSandler There are lots of workflows that 3rd party developers have to contend with that internal app developers presumably don't have to. I think it's a reasonable question to ask whether increased empathy, for everything from getting provisioning set up, to reportin…
Really want to see antitrust action against Apple's app store and Google's play Store end their global duopoly and bring accountability to their practices. https://twitter.com/...
Reminder that big companies aren't just apathetic towards the concept of game preservation, they're actively destroying history by making older games inaccessible just because they can. https://twitter.com/...
And now Apple is going to be removing older, complete games as well? Imagine removing movies or music from sale because “they haven't been updated recently”. This is a naive & disastrous approach to the 21st century's most important new medium. https://www.theverge.com/... https:…
@nibroc @SethSandler It's also widely suspected, if not known, that Apple uses a huge variety of internal design and debugging tools that are not available to 3rd parties. I mean, it's fine, there's an argument in favor of that, but PLEASE don't pretend it's a level playing field…
@peterfriese @SethSandler From the periphery, it doesn't sound like they have a modern developer relations program. Still very old school, and not much active engagement with the community, building and sharing prototypes, education. They seem to want to project a unified look.
2.2 has taken so long that geometry dash (and all related free versions) may no longer be available on both the google play store and apple app store, if gd is still not updated by the end of this year 🎉
If you want your work to last as described below don't subject yourself to the whims of a single uninterested gatekeeper (Apple). Apple wouldn't have been able to take down Wordle, for example... https://twitter.com/...
There was no indication of what kind of update needs to be made. Just that the app must be “updated” or be removed. Is there some security or technical issue an update will solve? Are arbitrary updates to fully functioning apps a necessary part of our development workflow?
I can at least try to understand getting rid of 32 bit apps years after 64 bit became standard. Or scam apps. or apps that collect data. Or broken apps. But this is a perfectly good game. No surprises. No tricks. Just something I worked very hard to make and love very much.
the App Store is already excruciatingly developer-hostile and this apparent new policy is just salt in the damn wound, what the fuck are they thinking https://twitter.com/...
I feel like I need to defend Apple here. People who owned & loved these old games will keep them. (They're not deleting them from my owned apps). Apple is only preventing *future* distribution unless the games are regularly updated for things like security. That's Fair https://tw…
Now I need to dig up my project file, update the Unity version to make sure it meets the App Store requirements, rebuild, retest, resubmit all to get the exact same game in the exact same place it was before. For me this kind of surprise is the worst part of making games.
@stroughtonsmith Unless Apple steps up and provides Microsoft levels of legacy support they've got to at least hide old stuff. Obviously they should do a better job of it, but at their scale...
this is part of why I never got into mobile games and why I basically don't ever care about releasing mac versions of stuff ever again. Apple does not seem to understand that a game can be “finished” and never touched again, and that not every application needs long term support …
The constant removal of older games from the App Store is just another bridge burned with game developers, who are far less invested in or tied to Apple's platforms than app devs. If Apple's dominance ever does come crashing down, they'll have no friends left to pick them back up
@migueldeicaza @SethSandler I often wonder how their Developer Relations team works. They seem to be in the marketing org. Having a zeroth customer (who can veto launches!) is one of the most effective strategies for getting your DevX right.
It's not an imposition only on app developers. Apple uses its App Store monopoly to continually obsolete users' libraries of purchased and free apps, depriving customers of software they owned, which the developers did not wish to discontinue.
Now I am expected, along with Google's new program, to update all of my games every 2 years even if nothing is wrong with them. Even yearly Unity updates break project so badly they won't run. This is not an insignificant challenge and adds undue stress.
For all kinds of things. I bought the Journey game's art book partially because it had 3D VR where pages you scan would have the 3D models start floating around above the pages. Several years later and I have a book with significant missing content because the ap is gone. https:/…
@raymondedwards @nicklockwood I keep mulling around this idea. A new platform or the like where they want more apps to be built for iOS 15. I can't quite make those theories coherent, though. I stand by my gut feeling that this is entirely about something internal to Apple, but I…
“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place” WTF @Apple? Apps don't lose their utility in two years! Bogus updates just not to be removed? Who benefits from that? https://twitter.com/...
Don't know why people are mad at Apple for this!! The games are literally too old to run on modern hardware, makes sense for it to be removed! https://twitter.com/...
i will no longer be watching movies that haven't gotten a sequel in the last 6 months, since they have not been updated in a significant amount of time https://twitter.com/...
The progressive tech mindset is opposed to immutability. It wants all software to be a service provided by developers, and preferably from companies. https://twitter.com/...
apple platforms are awful to develop for if you intend to make a “completed” app, such as a game or demo their constant API/ABI breakage along with insistence against open cross-platform standards and incredibly strict guidelines turned me away from developing for anything apple …
What a disgrace. You need to make arbitrary updates to old games, which usually starts a long chain of updating your development setup all the way to buying a new mac & multiple weeks of work. All because Apple's “search algorithm” can't cope with a few million old games? https:/…