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iOS 10.3 Beta Says 32-Bit Legacy Apps Will Not Work With Future Versions of iOS

CarlosQG said:
Perhaps iOS 11 will be rewritten with Swift and 64-bit-only?
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Not a chance that it's being "completely" rewritten. But many parts of it may be, and this seems to suggest the removal of 32-bit libraries.

macOS and iOS load 32-bit libraries when needed. Seems that this will no longer happen... only 64-bit libraries will be available.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
Uh, what? I used to distribute through the app stores. Pretty much every app cost me more money than I ever made from it, thus why I stopped. The financial performance of my apps were pretty typical, from my understanding. Most developers make next to nothing. The best most people get is they get their $100 annual developer fee that Apple charges back. Divide the income over the hours they work and you find they were effectively paid $0/hour.

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Is there any way for me to find out which apps installed on my iPhone are still 32 bit?
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Which is your app?
 
jayducharme said:
This sucks for me. I have quite a few 32-bit apps that still work fine but that simply haven't been updated. The developers are either no longer around or have moved on to other things. But I paid for those apps. I've already lost a few due to obsolescence. I'll either have to re-think how I spend money on the App Store or just realize that I'll get only a couple of years out of the apps I buy.
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If you get a few years of use from an app, I think you've gotten your money worth. Depending the price I don't expect a huge lifetime out of most apps. Some of the more expensive ones $10+ should maintain their updates for a least a couple years, but if I spend under that I don't expect much more than maybe a year. Everything in technology has a certain life expectancy to it. Consider that during the lifetime of those apps you've possibly purchased multiple phones without considering if you got your money worth out of them. Odd to expect a $3 app to last years and hold our $700+ phones to the same standard.
 
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If we were suppose to hold onto all technology for all time the FCC could have never reallocated the old analog wavebands for modern uses. Tech cannot progress if it has to be compatible with every device ever manufactured.
 
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WilliamTM said:
That kinda sucks...I've got a really old game that I enjoy playing to pass the time but it's not been updated since the days of the iPhone 5. :(
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I have one too, called CounterSpy - an old PlayStation game that was ported to IOS. It's actually quite good - but sadly, it appears to be 32-bit, and thus ripe for the culling.
 
I don't think they should be doing this yet. There is also no reason to do this other than to clean up abandoned/spam apps which they could do themselves without simultaneously getting rid of apps that people may use.
 
Vashetti said:
Looking forward to seeing millions of 32-bit apps disappear from the store because the developers don't see it as worth the cost to update
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These apps aren't profitable for the developer so it would be irrational for most of them to put in the effort to update them.
 
Xenomorph said:
Since Xcode compiles both the 32-bit and 64-bit binaries, any app that isn't "64-bit" means it hasn't really been updated since 2013...
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Not necessarily. There's two main reasons why an app hasn't gone 64 bit:
1. It relies on third-party libraries that are 32-bit only. If the library isn't updated, the developer has to rewrite their code to eliminate it.

2. The programmer made some incorrect assumptions when coding data types and hasn't fixed them. (They assumed a long or pointer could fit into an int, or they wrote longs directly to disk). This requires some code work.


Appleaker said:
I don't think they should be doing this yet. There is also no reason to do this other than to clean up abandoned/spam apps which they could do themselves without simultaneously getting rid of apps that people may use.
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No. There are very good reasons. Eliminating 32 bit code allows Apple to delete 32 bit libraries, saving disk space and also engineering time (basically doubling the amount of code work and QA they have to do). It saves memory and speeds launch, now that your system doesn't have to load 32 bit libraries for one app. It also theoretically allows Apple to remove 32 bit compatibility from their CPU, saving chip space, saving cost, battery and improving speed.
 
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d5aqoëp said:
To think of it from a DRM perspective, all those 32 bit apps you purchased... you will have no access to them because Apple axed 32 bit all together. That's DRM. Your purchases are not yours after all. You are at the mercy of the company who enforces the DRM.
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You're conflating DRM with supported CPU architectures. We can't run PPC apps since 10.6, but that's not the fault of DRM, we didn't even have DRM back then.

If I were in your boat, I'd seriously consider if I should keep running security cameras from a company that hasn't updated their app in a while. What other security updates are missing?
 
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d5aqoëp said:
I will have to upgrade my 5 year old CCTV camera system which will cost me $1000 because their remote app is 32bit and very old. It may stop working in iOS 11.

Now I will lose $1000 because of DRM.
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No, you didn't "lose" anything. You got full use out of the system. You should be be blaming Apple. It's the CCTV company that abandoned you. Also you could always keep an older device around just to control that system if you are hell bent on keeping it. But this is how electronics work -- there is no guarantee anything you buy today will work on later hardware. And with anything there is no guarantee the company will be around to support the product a year after you buy it. 5 years is old for a CCTV, you got your $ out of it at $200 per year. I know I have a closet full of worthless devices because the company went belly up and the old drivers don't work (well) with any current OS.
 
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Kinda sucks considering some of the apps I have that are games which I paid for were never updated. Since I have a watch I can't really fall behind on iOS versions because each new watch OS version needs the updated iOS version and watchOS is still so new that it is making large improvements with each revision
 
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ArtOfWarfare said:
Uh, what? I used to distribute through the app stores. Pretty much every app cost me more money than I ever made from it, thus why I stopped. The financial performance of my apps were pretty typical, from my understanding. Most developers make next to nothing. The best most people get is they get their $100 annual developer fee that Apple charges back. Divide the income over the hours they work and you find they were effectively paid $0/hour.
Click to expand...

5 years on the App Store was basically just $500 down the drain for me. The day I watched my apps disappear from the store was a happy one.
 
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The idea of a 64 bit only OS is great, and something a lot of people have wanted for a while. This probably confirms that iOS 11 will be 64 bit only.

However I can imagine a huge backlash over this if users upgrade, and then find out some of their apps just don't work anymore. Especially as there isn't anything the user can do about this
 
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I'm all for this as long as iTunes adds a filtering column for 32 vs. 64 bit so I can delete all the non-updated 32 bit apps from my library for a massive cleanse.
 
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This warning... It's BAD DESIGN. I've seen it from time to time. Not sure exactly what Apple wants me to do with it though. Does it want me to contact the organization making the app and protest? It's borderline ridiculous! Apple knows which apps are old and going to be incompatible soon. Apple needs to contact the organization not contact the customer. iOS should continue to support old legacy apps. If the customer enjoys the app and it works for them, then why break it???


appshopper_needs_updated-800x506.jpg
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Chupa Chupa said:
No, you didn't "lose" anything. You got full use out of the system. You should be be blaming Apple. It's the CCTV company that abandoned you. Also you could always keep an older device around just to control that system if you are hell bent on keeping it. But this is how electronics work -- there is no guarantee anything you buy today will work on later hardware. And with anything there is no guarantee the company will be around to support the product a year after you buy it. 5 years is old for a CCTV, you got your $ out of it at $200 per year. I know I have a closet full of worthless devices because the company went belly up and the old drivers don't work (well) with any current OS.
Click to expand...

This would have been a perfectly valid assumption to make on a PC based platform. You can always cobble together a legacy system to support your investment. This has been made difficult or impossible with iOS.

Lesson learned: Don't do this. Don't purchase any systems that require iOS apps to function unless you want it to become an expensive doorstop later.
 
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Very happy to hear this. Four years is plenty time to recompile the app in 64-bit. This will send a message to devs, you can’t just “set it and forget it.” Apps need attention.

The other day I downloaded GTA: San Andreas. 2+ Gigs of space and $7. Even on a 128 GB iPhone, 2 gigs of space is a significant chunk. Rockstar Games isn’t exactly a small, struggling company, and they’ve had plenty of time to update this game. There’s no excuse.

I promptly deleted the app, and contacted Apple for a refund, which they issued without hesitation.
 
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