How to find old (iOS 3.x) apps?

[tdushane]

Originally Posted by Tubamajuba

...You may not want or need such power and functionality from your iPhone 3G, but others do. And those are the people that developers target.

If your iPhone 3G does everything you need, then you should certainly not feel any pressure to buy a new phone! But just keep in mind the way mobile technology is trending.

The attitude you state here is unfortunate - reflected recently in Microsoft's ditching the few people who dared to try Win Phone 7 by making a lot of what they'd bought incompatible with Win Phone 8.

My take on it, as I limp along on my iPhone 3GS (which I have kept since I bought it), and as I found this thread because I'm trying to get an app from Samsung so I can control my TV from my cellphone (current app requires latest iOs), is that Apple (and now Microsoft) are in the past.

Remember (only those of you who are at least 40) when many people bought cars every 2 years??? It was the forward looking auto executives who realized that this was not a sustainable purchasing approach for many customers. They started to emphasize durability, safety, etc., knowing that in the short term their sales would decrease. We still have a vestige of this every-2-year practice in leases for the well-to-do, but it's a minority market now.

I, for one, hope Apple and Microsoft try a little more rational model, albeit one that won't make the huge profits they've made in the past, but will be plenty lucrative none the less. And I, for one, think the market in connected devices will mature just as the market for automobiles did.

Your condescending statement about 'that's the way mobile technology is trending' reminds me of what the self-congratulatory auto executives said about the 2-year buying cycle for autos back in the 60s. They hadn't considered that their position was not sustainable in the long run for the majority of their customers.

Because of the sandboxed ultra-tight control (and other factors), the iPhone is not only #2 behind Android worldwide and in the U.S., but #2 behind a specific Android phone, even in the U.S.

[drovid]

Originally Posted by entitymike

I have older iPhone legacy apps backed up onto an external hard drive. Multiple versions of the apps that I had installed. Are you able to list the apps and versions that you're looking for? I had a first generation 8GB iPhone for four years and now an iPhone 4.

~M

I don't know how to reply but I really want a facebook and instagram on my iPhone. Please help if you can
Thank you in advance
P. S. I added you in contacts

[Tubamajuba]

Originally Posted by tdushane

The attitude you state here is unfortunate - reflected recently in Microsoft's ditching the few people who dared to try Win Phone 7 by making a lot of what they'd bought incompatible with Win Phone 8.

My take on it, as I limp along on my iPhone 3GS (which I have kept since I bought it), and as I found this thread because I'm trying to get an app from Samsung so I can control my TV from my cellphone (current app requires latest iOs), is that Apple (and now Microsoft) are in the past.

Remember (only those of you who are at least 40) when many people bought cars every 2 years??? It was the forward looking auto executives who realized that this was not a sustainable purchasing approach for many customers. They started to emphasize durability, safety, etc., knowing that in the short term their sales would decrease. We still have a vestige of this every-2-year practice in leases for the well-to-do, but it's a minority market now.

I, for one, hope Apple and Microsoft try a little more rational model, albeit one that won't make the huge profits they've made in the past, but will be plenty lucrative none the less. And I, for one, think the market in connected devices will mature just as the market for automobiles did.

Your condescending statement about 'that's the way mobile technology is trending' reminds me of what the self-congratulatory auto executives said about the 2-year buying cycle for autos back in the 60s. They hadn't considered that their position was not sustainable in the long run for the majority of their customers.

Because of the sandboxed ultra-tight control (and other factors), the iPhone is not only #2 behind Android worldwide and in the U.S., but #2 behind a specific Android phone, even in the U.S.

I agree with you that the rate of "device turnover", if you will, is likely to decrease over time. There once was a time when buying a new computer every two years was also a necessity due to the increasing requirements of operating systems and the software that ran on those operating systems. But around 2007 or so, the rate of software bloat began to slow, and even a computer manufactured in '07 will meet the needs of most people today. It's only a matter of time before a similar phenomenon takes place in the mobile device industry.

Also, I was not trying to come across as condescending when I said "that's the way mobile technology is trending". I was simply stating the reality of the current situation, a reality that is unfortunate and yet likely to change at some point in the future.

[Cool Javelin]

Here is the real deal.

It's all about greed.

I read somewhere Apple sold some 87 million iPod Touches. Assuming some 25% of them were 3G or older limited to IOS 4.2.1, that is something like 20+ Million devices that are totally useless.

You simply cannot get any apps that will work in these devices.

Time to throw them away and buy new ones.

So, a little math;

20 Million iPods at about $200 each is an astounding 4 BILLION dollars that Apple has simply taken (read stolen) from their customers.

We bought a product that is deliberately, DELIBERATELY made obsolete without any form of compensation.

Now, they want us to purchase a new version of the product.

If you think they won't do the same thing again in a year or so, think again.

Apple is greedy. They want your money for a device, not once, not twice, but as many times as you are willing to part with it.

But, it seems consumers are stupid and will buy a new Apple product in a few years yet again.

Well, not me. Slap me in the face once is all it takes. Time to pawn it.

It is my STRONG recommendation you do NOT purchase an Apple product of any kind.

Go Android, go Windows. As far as I know they haven't obsoleted their older devices.

My 2 cents.

Mark.

P.S. I keep wondering why Apple would make such a poor long term business decision forcing some 20 million people to go through this. Then it occurred to me. They know damn well they are going to get bad press and loose a LOT of customers. They must feel their company can't make it in the long run competing against Google and Microsoft so they are trying to get a lot of short term money, then fold the company and a few people at the top are going to get very rich, just like the bankers.

[Meechgalhuquot]

After much searching I found this website. http://download.pandaapp.com
There is only one problem. Whenever you download something pop-up sites come up.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by Cool Javelin

It's all about greed.

I read somewhere Apple sold some 87 million iPod Touches. Assuming some 25% of them were 3G or older limited to IOS 4.2.1, that is something like 20+ Million devices that are totally useless.

You simply cannot get any apps that will work in these devices.

Time to throw them away and buy new ones.

Absolutely agreed. Apple's greed is a REAL PITA. This is one of the (many) reasons I'm planning to switch to Android for generic, all-day usage and only keep iOS so that I can continue lecturing on its programming and writing articles. The other is being Apple's stubborn sticking - to keep the playback of their iTunes Store much better - with its really idiotic restrictions. For example, not letting devs use video hardware acceleration for h.264 decoding.

You'll also want to add that 2nd-gen iPt's were sold up until Sept/2010 - that is, two years before Apple has totally disabled setting 4.2.1 as a deployment target. Two years - and a perfectly usable and viable model is no longer usable.

Apple, you either stop being THIS greedy or more educated people will all leave you.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by tdushane

The attitude you state here is unfortunate - reflected recently in Microsoft's ditching the few people who dared to try Win Phone 7 by making a lot of what they'd bought incompatible with Win Phone 8.

I think the situation is different.

- when designing / releasing WP7 (up until, say, Summer 2010), MS still didn't know what WP8 would contain.

- WP8 has much higher HW demands than WP7.

The situation with Apple's disabling making one's app compliant with both 3.1.x (1st-gen devices) and 4.2.1 (2nd-gen devices) is because of simple greed. Particularly the 2nd-gen iPt isn't at all slower than, say, the iPhone 3G S and is perfectly usable even with 4.2.1. Raising the minimal deployment target to 4.3 in Sept/2012 can only be explained by Apple's greed as, again, the hardware itself could be able to run all those apps (unlike they require, among other things, OpenGL ES 2.0, more than 256M RAM etc.) and not because of the hardware's absolutely incompatible with the new iOS versions (unlike with MS's case).

[Supa-iOS-Boy01]

I am on iOS 3.1.2 on iPhone 3G and I do not know wether the app "Mpad Controller" for $0.99 is compatible with my device and I DONT want to buy something I cannot use with
my device. Can't Apple just show what iOS version it uses!

[AnonMac50]

Don't forget, giving the iPhone 3G and second gen iPod touch iOS 4 support but not giving it to the first gen iPhone and iPod touch. What's more? The iPhone 3G has the SAME hardware as the first gen devices I just mentioned.

[umiwangu]

Originally Posted by Supa-iOS-Boy01

I am on iOS 3.1.2 on iPhone 3G and I do not know wether the app "Mpad Controller" for $0.99 is compatible with my device and I DONT want to buy something I cannot use with
my device. Can't Apple just show what iOS version it uses!

Get in touch with the developer and ask them.

[hishaks]

I guess apple is making a loss for themselves. This is simply dumb. If they only host the latest versions of their apps, which is useless on devices running older versions of IOS, they are losing business. I am not sure who took this decision. This is completely impractical. Simple reason, if someone has an older device, they can't buy compatible apps. They may or may not upgrade to a newer device which means less people are able to buy those apps.

It is very well understandable that the newer devices have much better hardware and thus the latest apps are built keeping in mind their requirement, but why are older versions of apps removed. Their might be people who would still want to buy some apps for the legacy devices. Also, if someone buys a second hand iDevice, they too might be interested in the apps for their old devices.

Some people have suggested that the user should not upgrade the apps if their devices are old in order to make sure that they have all their apps with them. I got an iPod touch 2G and iPhone 5. Now, I wont do justice to my iPhone if I don't upgrade the apps. And if I do, my apps are rendered useless on my iPod. Also, the iTunes does not maintain apps separately for different devices.

Another point I would like to make here is, why is it difficult to design an app store that can host previous versions of an app. They can design in such a way that once a user buys an app, if he downloads any version, he is not charged for that. Apple should keep a history of userIDs associated with apps and not their versions. Or they can design the iTunes software in such a way that it can keep a backup of all the versions that a user has downloaded. Why is that so difficult?

I do understand it might not make business sense to develop new apps for older devices but it makes perfect sense to keep the older version of the app on the app store. While downloading any app, the user can be gives options as to what version they want to download. I think that is perfectly feasible.

The only reason I think Apple is not supporting the older devices is to force customers into buying new ones.

Well, the iPhone cost me a months salary. It costs somewhere around $850 in India, and we don't have the kind of salaries the guys in US get. So, that means, the value of my currency is less, I get paid less and I still have to pay more than the consumer's in US for the same device. And saying that much, I guess it would be understandable that it's not easy for us to buy the new devices every couple of years. In fact, I used my last **** Music phone for 5 years, it even didn't have 3G for that matter.

And sorry for the long post.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by hishaks

It is very well understandable that the newer devices have much better hardware and thus the latest apps are built keeping in mind their requirement, but why are older versions of apps removed.

Not necessarily. By today's standards, the iPod touch 2G has a pretty decent hardware and not even the 4.2.1 update (the latest available) did slow it down. (Unlike the iPhone 3G, which is only a bit slower CPU-wise but Apple seemingly has deliberately slowed it completely down so that it becomes completely useless and all iPhone 3G users upgrade to newer hardware.)

Up until Sept/2012 (the release of iOS 6 and making it impossible to release apps targeting iOS versions prior to 4.3), about 50-60% of new games and 95%+ of non-game apps did run on the iPod touch 2G. (Figures are based on my experience as I've been continuously testing new apps on old hardware too.) This means it would run most of new titles w/o problems - the hardware isn't slow at all.

After Sept/2012, almost no (new / updated) apps continued to run on these 1st / 2nd-gen models.

This all means it was simply a business decision on Apple's part not to let devs support 2nd-gen devices, while the hardware would still be able to run new titles.

And all this just two years after stopping selling the 2nd-gen iPT (the 8GB model was sold up until late Sept/2010, up until the introduction of the 4th gen of the iPT.) This is very rude indeed - you purchase an iPT and, after two years, find yourself not being able to run anything on it any more.

[sebastian...]

Originally Posted by Tubamajuba

I understand your point. There are many reasons why you would still use an older iOS device. But there comes a point where Apple and app developers need to let go of past iOS versions and devices and focus on the newer ones.

You keep repeating this, but what the people here are saying is they don't expect the developers to go to the trouble of maintaining compatibility with older devices.
The only thing requested here - Once a customer bought the FancyApp_1.0.2 with 9.99 $ he should be able to download that app and that version if he chooses even 2 years later.

It should be a Consumer protection law.

And the second thing requested : Let's say someone buys from amazon a used iphone 3gs. A fairly new device. But the iphone was sold clean, without any apps to a fresh new owner who just entered in the apple ecosystem. What should he do ? Probably most of the casual and must-have-apps like yahoo and skype and so on are no longer downloadable.

[umiwangu]

Originally Posted by sebastian...

You keep repeating this, but what the people here are saying is they don't expect the developers to go to the trouble of maintaining compatibility with older devices.
The only thing requested here - Once a customer bought the FancyApp_1.0.2 with 9.99 $ he should be able to download that app and that version if he chooses even 2 years later.

It should be a Consumer protection law.

And the second thing requested : Let's say someone buys from amazon a used iphone 3gs. A fairly new device. But the iphone was sold clean, without any apps to a fresh new owner who just entered in the apple ecosystem. What should he do ? Probably most of the casual and must-have-apps like yahoo and skype and so on are no longer downloadable.

My thoughts exactly, well put.

[murchyk]

Sorry if this was already mentioned, thread is too long to read.
to get a newer apps to work on your old device heres what you have to do.

1. locate an app in your filesystem, usually an itunes folder with all your apps.
2. rename the IPA to ZIP
3. open the zip folder, locate info.plist
4. open info.plist using a text editor, and in the description where it says minimum IOS change to the IOS of your old device.
for example if its MinimumIOS6.0 change it to MinimumIOS3.0

it works for almost any app, i just came across 2 or 3 out of about 200

enjoy!

Serge.

PS. Nothing illegal here youre just making your product compatible with your device again, which is what you have already paid for and have all the rights to do so.

[umiwangu]

Originally Posted by murchyk

Sorry if this was already mentioned, thread is too long to read.
to get a newer apps to work on your old device heres what you have to do.

1. locate an app in your filesystem, usually an itunes folder with all your apps.
2. rename the IPA to ZIP
3. open the zip folder, locate info.plist
4. open info.plist using a text editor, and in the description where it says minimum IOS change to the IOS of your old device.
for example if its MinimumIOS6.0 change it to MinimumIOS3.0

it works for almost any app, i just came across 2 or 3 out of about 200

enjoy!

Serge.

PS. Nothing illegal here youre just making your product compatible with your device again, which is what you have already paid for and have all the rights to do so.

Nope, I don't think this was mentioned.

Great!

[rak007]

Originally Posted by murchyk

Sorry if this was already mentioned, thread is too long to read.
to get a newer apps to work on your old device heres what you have to do.

1. locate an app in your filesystem, usually an itunes folder with all your apps.
2. rename the IPA to ZIP
3. open the zip folder, locate info.plist
4. open info.plist using a text editor, and in the description where it says minimum IOS change to the IOS of your old device.
for example if its MinimumIOS6.0 change it to MinimumIOS3.0

it works for almost any app, i just came across 2 or 3 out of about 200

enjoy!

Serge.

PS. Nothing illegal here youre just making your product compatible with your device again, which is what you have already paid for and have all the rights to do so.

You think i can use Tapatalk 2 on my iPhone 4S with 5.1.1 using this method ? I am sure the Tapatalk 2 requires minimum iOS 6.

Ok so i have this tapatalk 2 IPA with me but when i open the info.plist in some text editor, i get lots of gibberish characters and some english like ones too.
It is not a proper formatted file or anything.

I cannot get this file from my device because the app does not even install on the device because it is only iOS 6 compatible.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by rak007

Ok so i have this tapatalk 2 IPA with me but when i open the info.plist in some text editor

You're using Windows, I take it. Use plist Editor for Windows : http://www.softpedia.com/get/Program...-Windows.shtml

[rak007]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

You're using Windows, I take it. Use plist Editor for Windows : http://www.softpedia.com/get/Program...-Windows.shtml

Trying to install a .IPA with a modified info.plist won't cause any problems with my phone right ? Whats the worst that can happen ?
I do not wish to mess up causing me to restore which i dont want to do since i am on iOS 5.1.1 and don't wish to go to 6.0 for now.

----------

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

You're using Windows, I take it. Use plist Editor for Windows : http://www.softpedia.com/get/Program...-Windows.shtml

Yes using windows, shall check that tool. Btw i can update the plist in iFile too on the phone itself.

[mackerm]

Here's a Google search which will find every app in the US iTunes store which is compatible with the iPod Touch 2G or iPhone 3G, and which includes the word "turtle". (You can replace "turtle" with any search term you want).
http://goo.gl/Rm0Tw

Likewise, the following search will find apps in the US iTunes store which are compatible with the original iPhone or original iPod Touch, and which also include the word "turtle" (Again, change "turtle" to anything you want).
http://goo.gl/ExJqs

Note that the results will include apps with specific hardware requirements, like the iPad or iPhone 3GS. Still, this will filter out 95% of apps which are incompatible with the desired iOS devices. I'm wary of adding search elements to filter out undesired hardware, because they might also remove desirable apps.

[Austin Karl]

Thanks for sharing. iOS 3.x game apps is very old version so upgrade to a newer version at your device.

[umiwangu]

Originally Posted by Austin Karl

Thanks for sharing. iOS 3.x game apps is very old version so upgrade to a newer version at your device.

There are many reasons for some people to stay on 3.x, some of which would include speed and jailbreaking/unlocking.

[GL-5]

Originally Posted by murchyk

Sorry if this was already mentioned, thread is too long to read.
to get a newer apps to work on your old device heres what you have to do.

1. locate an app in your filesystem, usually an itunes folder with all your apps.
2. rename the IPA to ZIP
3. open the zip folder, locate info.plist
4. open info.plist using a text editor, and in the description where it says minimum IOS change to the IOS of your old device.
for example if its MinimumIOS6.0 change it to MinimumIOS3.0

it works for almost any app, i just came across 2 or 3 out of about 200

enjoy!

Serge.

PS. Nothing illegal here youre just making your product compatible with your device again, which is what you have already paid for and have all the rights to do so.

I take it you need a jailbroken phone as I am getting signature errors.

[mackerm]

Here's a form I made to find apps which are compatible with older iOS devices. (This is really an update to my last post, above.)
https://sites.google.com/site/iossearch/

[sebastian...]

Originally Posted by mackerm

Here's a form I made to find apps which are compatible with older iOS devices. (This is really an update to my last post, above.)
https://sites.google.com/site/iossearch/

Interesting. You should add more filters. Like from ios 1 to ios 5 . Or find apps only for ios 6.0 and up - for people curious about the apps using the latest api ... and so on.