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iOS 11 decided to stop letting some apps run

Rantipole

Rantipole

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 24, 2004
307
24
Boston
I have some (admittedly older) apps on my iPad that worked fine until recently. Now they won't even open and I get an error saying that app doesn't work on iOS 11 and needs to be updated. It so happens there are no more updates to these apps.

BUT, I have used them in iOS 11 before! In fact, for at least one app, I have evidence that I used it under iOS11, probably 11.0 or 11.1. Perhaps even the earlier version of 11.2. So, somehow with the 11.2.5 or 2.6 upgrade, Apple decided not to let these apps work anymore. Why not?? They worked fine under 11. Saying the app doesn't work with 11 is bunk.

I suspect that this is actually a bug. Is this a known issue? I poked around here a bit, and didn't see anything.
 
Rantipole said:
I have some (admittedly older) apps on my iPad that worked fine until recently. Now they won't even open and I get an error saying that app doesn't work on iOS 11 and needs to be updated. It so happens there are no more updates to these apps.
Click to expand...

Apple have shown appalling customer service haven't they? They only give you a years advance notice that 32 bit apps wouldn't work with iOS 11.

I mean really, they should have started telling people at least 3 years ago, don't you think? :rolleyes:

32-Bit Apps No Longer Supported in iOS 11


Over the course of the last several months, warnings about 32-bit apps have gotten increasingly dire. With the launch of iOS 10.1 in October of 2016, Apple started warning customers that older apps "may slow down your iPhone."

In January of 2017, the first iOS 10.3 beta featured an even more serious message when launching a 32-bit app, which specifically read "This app will not work with future versions of iOS."

Given the warnings, it should come as no surprise that Apple has eliminated support for 32-bit apps, but it does render many older apps that have worked for years without updates unusable. There are likely many users who continue to use 32-bit apps regularly who will be surprised to find that those apps no longer work when iOS 11 rolls out to the public.
Click to expand...

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/06/32-bit-apps-no-longer-supported-in-ios-11/
 
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Rantipole said:
I have some (admittedly older) apps on my iPad that worked fine until recently. Now they won't even open and I get an error saying that app doesn't work on iOS 11 and needs to be updated. It so happens there are no more updates to these apps.

BUT, I have used them in iOS 11 before! In fact, for at least one app, I have evidence that I used it under iOS11, probably 11.0 or 11.1. Perhaps even the earlier version of 11.2. So, somehow with the 11.2.5 or 2.6 upgrade, Apple decided not to let these apps work anymore. Why not?? They worked fine under 11. Saying the app doesn't work with 11 is bunk.

I suspect that this is actually a bug. Is this a known issue? I poked around here a bit, and didn't see anything.
Click to expand...
Your problem is with the developer(s) not Apple. Apple let everyone know for at least a year that 32bit apps would not work with iOS 11. If a developer has failed or refused to upgrade their apps, that is not Apple's problem.
 
Rantipole said:
I have some (admittedly older) apps on my iPad that worked fine until recently. Now they won't even open and I get an error saying that app doesn't work on iOS 11 and needs to be updated. It so happens there are no more updates to these apps.

BUT, I have used them in iOS 11 before! In fact, for at least one app, I have evidence that I used it under iOS11, probably 11.0 or 11.1. Perhaps even the earlier version of 11.2. So, somehow with the 11.2.5 or 2.6 upgrade, Apple decided not to let these apps work anymore. Why not?? They worked fine under 11. Saying the app doesn't work with 11 is bunk.

I suspect that this is actually a bug. Is this a known issue? I poked around here a bit, and didn't see anything.
Click to expand...

As others have said, iOS no longer supports 32-bit apps as of iOS 11. Warnings started showing up with those older apps when iOS 10 came out. In fact, one of the games I enjoy (mostly for nostalgic reasons) was getting that warning. I contacted the developer and asked if they could rebuild it as a 64-bit app and re-submit it to the app store. Within a couple of weeks it was on the app store as a 64-bit app :)

So, yeah, there was a lot of forewarning on this.
 
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Thank you for pointing out that iOS11 does not support 32 bit programs and there was plenty of warning. But no one has addressed my main point which was: how did these apps work under earlier versions of iOS11? I have a screenshot of from early January from one of these apps; iOS 11 was released in September and I probably updated to it with 11.1, i.e. before January.
 
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Rantipole said:
Thank you for pointing out that iOS11 does not support 32 bit programs and there was plenty of warning. But no one has addressed my main point which was: how did these apps work under earlier versions of iOS11? I have a screenshot of from early January from one of these apps; iOS 11 was released in September and I probably updated to it with 11.1, i.e. before January.
Click to expand...

It's pretty clear what the knee-jerk reaction is going to be. You have a page full of it. If you truly claim to have an app that was actually running on iOS 11, how about the name of that app? Maybe it's not a 32-bit app and we're dealing with some other issue here. Maybe something else is happening. You're going to need to tell us which app or continue to get "32-bit apps don't run on iOS 11" replies.
 
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Rantipole said:
Thank you for pointing out that iOS11 does not support 32 bit programs and there was plenty of warning. But no one has addressed my main point which was: how did these apps work under earlier versions of iOS11? I have a screenshot of from early January from one of these apps; iOS 11 was released in September and I probably updated to it with 11.1, i.e. before January.
Click to expand...
I wonder if further steps were made as of January 1, 2018? That was the date for Mac App Store.

https://9to5mac.com/2017/06/06/ios-11-32-bit-mac-app-store-64-bit/
 
Occam's razor prevails, its most likely your memory is inaccurate and that these apps are 32-bit and didn't run at all on 11.x

Second most likely is they are 32-bit apps and Apple allowed them to continue to run in 11.0/1 for some other purpose (perhaps a major Apple customer was having trouble migrating for example - several examples of that in the Windows environment), but that at some point the 64-bit enforcement kicked in as previously announced by Apple.

But without knowing which apps and some evidence that it wasn't your memory playing tricks (even you used the phrase "probably updated"), its most likely the 32-bit restriction and nothing more complicated.
 
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