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Apple Will No Longer Approve Apps Using Unique Device Identifier (UDID) Beginning May 1, Must Also Support iPhone 5 and Retina Display
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You aren't paying for any updates. Nor do Apple's Terms of Sale promise you any. That's the excuse of a vast number of developers who have made almost no money, so have moved on to other apps or projects or jobs more likely to pay the rent (or even just buy coffee).
Further, some iPhone 3G users are going to be very unhappy when an update is incompatible with their devices, and iTunes tries to throw the earlier working app version in the Trash.
These are the policies that make the iOS app store eat Google Play's lunch. Apple demands that you release a polished product, at the very least. Functionality, well, that's subjective, but at least Apple does its best to keep out the mounds of dreck that Google Play lets in just to have the appearance of parity with the iOS app store. Oh, unless your device does something that google doesn't want, i.e. block ads, then all that "open is better" garbage goes out the window.
As a developer, these evolutions are just a cost of doing business. The UDID changes have been in effect for quite some time. Retina support is very simple for most apps, as is support for the 4" screen.
Apps should be insensitive to screen size whenever possible anyway...
Apps should be insensitive to screen size whenever possible anyway...
You have this all backwards.
Apple wants to improve the quality of the apps in the app store. Developers should want their apps to be the best they can possibly be as well. As an app purchaser, you should be Happy with better quality.
Lazy developers should go code for Android.
The layout scales... but what about graphics and other elements?
Do developers have to provide artwork (say backgrounds) in the highest resolution ever imaginable? For instance... not a whole lot of apps were designed when 1920x1080 phones were common. There was a time when 1280x720 was the highest resolution on a phone.
So if you just got a new 1920x1080 phone... how bad would graphics look on it? Would you have to wait for developers to update the artwork in their apps to make them look good on that super high-rez screen?
And what about aspect ratio? Different backgrounds for 15:9, 16:9 and 16:10 ?
You wouldn't want to stretch an image to fit a different aspect ratio, right?
I've always known that Android layouts fit any screen.... but I'm curious about the pixel-based graphical elements themselves.
Serious question... not trying to start a platform war
It's too bad they aren't going further and removing apps that don't comply with the new requirements. It would give Apple a good excuse to remove all the junk apps in the App Store which are just stinking the place up.
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The serious answer is no, Android does not automagically readjust the app images for whatever phone dimensions/resolution it runs on. Developers have to provide art assets for each unique layout/resolution.
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I've always known that Android layouts fit any screen.... but I'm curious about the pixel-based graphical elements themselves.
Serious question... not trying to start a platform war
The serious answer is no, Android does not automagically readjust the app images for whatever phone dimensions/resolution it runs on. Developers have to provide art assets for each unique layout/resolution.
On a slightly related note, Apple needs to follow it's own interface guidelines of 44px for the notification center x's which are clearly smaller than that. Maybe if Apple followed their own guidelines, developers would too. Same with Passbook integration. Lead by example.
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ooh another change
oh goody.. another requirement that all new apps must abide by.
What about existing apps already in the store ? don't these count too ?
This basically means if the app is in the store already, there will be no "forcing" to iPhone 5 and Retina Display.
This also, means devs will have the option of just "not updating" as its done now.
I have many apps on my iPhone 4s, so I'm not included, but i'm sure there are many thousand apps already on the store, just the developer will decide "not to update" and never will be compatible with the next gen iPhone 5 and Retina, just because bugs are more important.
I can see this current "forcing"" of new apps of being good, the take away is there is always going to be a grudge from customers "they're favorite app does not work on the iPhone 5" when they purchased it prior.
If Apple want to make this stick every single app will need to be re-done from scratch (something will be a big job) ...
Either-way, its a step in the right direction ....
oh goody.. another requirement that all new apps must abide by.
What about existing apps already in the store ? don't these count too ?
This basically means if the app is in the store already, there will be no "forcing" to iPhone 5 and Retina Display.
This also, means devs will have the option of just "not updating" as its done now.
I have many apps on my iPhone 4s, so I'm not included, but i'm sure there are many thousand apps already on the store, just the developer will decide "not to update" and never will be compatible with the next gen iPhone 5 and Retina, just because bugs are more important.
I can see this current "forcing"" of new apps of being good, the take away is there is always going to be a grudge from customers "they're favorite app does not work on the iPhone 5" when they purchased it prior.
If Apple want to make this stick every single app will need to be re-done from scratch (something will be a big job) ...
Either-way, its a step in the right direction ....
perhaps this is something that's gonna be added in iOS7. since people are expecting apple to release bigger phones, i can see it happening.
oh, and i'm sure they'll have a 15min presentation about how magical this is
What's wrong with them being small? I've never noticed an issue.
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All you have to do is make the GUI slightly taller, even if it's just a blank background. Is that too much to ask?
That's the easy part anyway. Updating some apps for iPhone 5 isn't as straightforward as some IB elements don't obey autolayout as well as they should.
I'm hoping they become a bit more lenient in not supporting non-retina devices. I recently submitted a game which doesn't run well on the 3GS for some reason no matter how well I optimise it. I've submitted it with the 'requires front facing camera' string but apparently it's just pure luck if it gets through without a rejection.
I thought touch targets should (and those guidelines are more a kind of "should", not "must") be 44px - those delete buttons are smaller than 44px, but is the touch target really smaller?
Just checked it on the iPad - as long as some part of your fingertip touches the (X), it works.
And just remember, the bigger the button, the less room for text in a notification, so it could be a trade-off.
Well then they don't need to worry about this since they've moved on to other things and will not update their app anyway. However, there are many apps that have obviously not been abandoned and the developers continue to push out updates without iPhone 5 support. Also, just because a developer updates an app for retina or the iPhone 5 doesn't necessarily mean that they need to kill support for older versions of iOS.
Actually they do need to kill support to update. Apples no longer accepts apps that support both armv6 and the iPhone 5 display, and any of Apple's new Xcode tools required for iOS 6 support can't build apps for older versions of iOS that old devices may require.
It's going to be a real pain in the a$$ to develop "universal" apps because the aspect ratios of the iPad and iPhone 5 are different. People like to run the apps they purchase on their phone and tablet. This could be done with letterbox, stretching, and one or two other tricks. But now it appears everything must be supported "natively."
Because they sell a lot of products that have Retina displays and these apps are under the same App Store and compatible with these devices...
To be honest... I'd rather have universal apps that fit both screens perfectly... instead of relying on letterboxing or whatever.
And the developers should want that too... regardless of how much work it takes. If they decided to jump into the world of iOS development... they should produce the best apps they can!
BTW... the iPhone's aspect ratio has always been different than the iPad's aspect ratio. Are you telling me there are some apps that claim to be "universal" that still don't fit the iPad correctly?
Maybe it's a good thing Apple is finally cracking down in this behavior