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Major Apps Still Not Optimized for the iPhone 6/6 Plus

davidnyjets

davidnyjets

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 4, 2011
292
7
New York
I just don't get it. It's been months and months. Is it that hard of an update? I think what irks me more than anything is that these apps get constant updates but still no iPhone 6 Plus support... A bunch of these apps even utilize iOS 8 features... Touch ID support, widgets, etc.

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My Verizon: looks optimized even though App Store doesn't say so
ESPN Sportscenter: now just "ESPN" and updated for new resolutions inclduing a new icon
Pandora: looks optimized even though App Store doesn't say so
 
Last edited:
davidnyjets said:
I just don't get it. It's been months and months. Is it that hard of an update? I think what irks me more than anything is that these apps get constant updates but still not iPhone 6 Plus support... A bunch of these apps even utilize iOS 8 features... Touch ID support, widgets, etc.

Chase
Discover
Amex
eBay
PayPal
LinkedIn
MyVerizon
ESPN Sportscenter
Pandora
Click to expand...

Sometimes the reason is stupider than you think. My company's mobile division just released an update to one of our apps and didn't include iPhone 6/6x Plus support. When I enquired as to why, it turns out no one on the team had a current generation iPhone and it simply was never tested on one, so they didn't even realize it was something they needed to do (I guess users never complained or the complaints never made it to Engineering). When you have a unified mobile team that develops for multiple platforms, you'd be surprised how little companies sometimes follow the latest developments on a particular platform.
 
davidnyjets said:
I just don't get it. It's been months and months. Is it that hard of an update? I think what irks me more than anything is that these apps get constant updates but still not iPhone 6 Plus support... A bunch of these apps even utilize iOS 8 features... Touch ID support, widgets, etc.

Chase
Discover
Amex
eBay
PayPal
LinkedIn
MyVerizon
ESPN Sportscenter
Pandora
Click to expand...

eBay even showed us their update with the widget compatibility at WWDC I think it was. Unless they found a major bug and had to start from scratch? It's quite pathetic that eBay and PayPal haven't yet even made their apps compatible.
 
davidnyjets said:
I just don't get it. It's been months and months. Is it that hard of an update? I think what irks me more than anything is that these apps get constant updates but still not iPhone 6 Plus support... A bunch of these apps even utilize iOS 8 features... Touch ID support, widgets, etc.

Chase
Discover
Amex
eBay
PayPal
LinkedIn
MyVerizon
ESPN Sportscenter
Pandora
Click to expand...

It actually is difficult if the interface was custom built to the fullest like hard-coding for the iPhone 5 size instead of using auto-layout. However, even using auto-layout can be problematic in certain cases. Apple's APIs aren't perfect, they have a lot of little bugs that aren't resolved even to this day.

If these apps doesn't feel like a lightweight iOS interface, it means they over-engineer it with a custom interface and it would not be easy to add support for different sizes or higher resolutions.

Touch ID and widgets are much easier to adopt support for in this case than to redesign the interface to support the different sizes, there are no interface change you have to make, they're just pure code.

Apple will eventually set a deadline for all apps to support iPhone 6 Plus resolution/3x mode or they won't be able to update anymore. I suspect this to start happening within 2 years.
 
Because sometimes major apps are commissioned to a couple of old coders who think "I don't see the problem. Looks good to me".

And the management says "well, they said it looks good to them".
 
davidnyjets said:
I just don't get it. It's been months and months. Is it that hard of an update? I think what irks me more than anything is that these apps get constant updates but still not iPhone 6 Plus support... A bunch of these apps even utilize iOS 8 features... Touch ID support, widgets, etc.

Chase
Discover
Amex
eBay
PayPal
LinkedIn
MyVerizon
ESPN Sportscenter
Pandora
Click to expand...


Still no higher resolution support for the TED Talks app, even though it has gone through several "iOS 8 optimisations". Whatever that means?

SpeedTest needs iPhone 6/6 Plus support.

Full Fitness needs an update, badly. What's funny is that their last update from 14 Sep 2013 has the following message:

We are working on a massive update involving new exercises, routines and some clever features...but this update doesn't include it.

Because iOS7 is being released next week, this update is just to ensure the app keeps working until we have the large update done.
Click to expand...

They haven't even updated it for iOS 7! This is supposedly one of the most popular workout apps across the globe.
 
gordon1234 said:
Sometimes the reason is stupider than you think. My company's mobile division just released an update to one of our apps and didn't include iPhone 6/6x Plus support. When I enquired as to why, it turns out no one on the team had a current generation iPhone and it simply was never tested on one, so they didn't even realize it was something they needed to do (I guess users never complained or the complaints never made it to Engineering). When you have a unified mobile team that develops for multiple platforms, you'd be surprised how little companies sometimes follow the latest developments on a particular platform.
Click to expand...

What's worse is some companies use iPhone emulators to test on because management is too cheap to buy a test unit. Where I work we end up using our own personal devices for testing for the same reason.
 
Major Apps Still Not Optimized for the iPhone 6/6 Plus

gordon1234 said:
Sometimes the reason is stupider than you think. My company's mobile division just released an update to one of our apps and didn't include iPhone 6/6x Plus support. When I enquired as to why, it turns out no one on the team had a current generation iPhone and it simply was never tested on one, so they didn't even realize it was something they needed to do (I guess users never complained or the complaints never made it to Engineering). When you have a unified mobile team that develops for multiple platforms, you'd be surprised how little companies sometimes follow the latest developments on a particular platform.
Click to expand...


I do believe that might be the case for smaller companies/apps, but there's no excuse for some of these major places.

Point in case, you would think someone at Chase or Amex used a iPhone 6/6 Plus to test Apple Pay compatibility. Couldn't also pass it off to the dev team to make it compatible with new resolutions?
 
Armen said:
What's worse is some companies use iPhone emulators to test on because management is too cheap to buy a test unit. Where I work we end up using our own personal devices for testing for the same reason.
Click to expand...
That's a matter of you letting your manager/corporate step all over you and use you. If you halted releases because you had no test environment, they'd find a measly $650 in their budget to supply such.

If you had a personal Android device, or a feature phone. You mean to tell me you wouldn't be testing apps at all?

When my boss asked me if I had work email on my phone. I asked him if he was providing a phone, and if corp was going to pay for the data? The answer no, and that was it.
 
davidnyjets said:
I just don't get it. It's been months and months. Is it that hard of an update? I think what irks me more than anything is that these apps get constant updates but still not iPhone 6 Plus support... A bunch of these apps even utilize iOS 8 features... Touch ID support, widgets, etc.

Chase
Discover
Amex
eBay
PayPal
LinkedIn
MyVerizon
ESPN Sportscenter
Pandora
Click to expand...

Pandora is updated for the iPhone 6/6+.
 
Wells Fargo app is also one. The ATM locator is not working, and everything is huge when used in iPhone 6 plus. I ended up uninstalling it since using Safari is just as good
 
davidnyjets said:
I do believe that might be the case for smaller companies/apps, but there's no excuse for some of these major places.

Point in case, you would think someone at Chase or Amex used a iPhone 6/6 Plus to test Apple Pay compatibility. Couldn't also pass it off to the dev team to make it compatible with new resolutions?
Click to expand...

You obviously never worked at a major company have you?

It does not work like that and despite what you think, dev teams cannot free-willy do stuff without the permission of the corporate/QA managers.
 
MikhailT said:
You obviously never worked at a major company have you?

It does not work like that and despite what you think, dev teams cannot free-willy do stuff without the permission of the corporate/QA managers.
Click to expand...

thanks for explaining what I was too lazy to type out :)
 
MikhailT said:
You obviously never worked at a major company have you?

It does not work like that and despite what you think, dev teams cannot free-willy do stuff without the permission of the corporate/QA managers.
Click to expand...

Actually work at a company that employees anywhere between 800-1,100 people in my office (their international headquarters) and tons more throughout the world... Don't work within mobile development though. They have a popular app that I manage content wise on a daily basis that isn't updated either.

Not saying they should free-willy do stuff but can't see why managers wouldn't be on board with investing time and money into this. Doesn't make sense to me.
 
Last edited:
Traverse said:
Unless Apple repeatedly changes sizes and resolutions (unlikely), I would think the issue would get better over time.
Click to expand...

Well, we are about to see 2 small watch sized displays, we have 3.5", 4", 4.7" and 5.5" phones, plus we are about to see a 12.2" iPad Pro added to the Mini and regular iPad sizes.
I believe Apple are staying within the same resolution, just double and tripling (and soon maybe quadrupling?) resolutions.

I don't see things getting better any time soon. In fact, I see Apple having the same growing pains that Google had in managing multiple sizes and 'maybe' resolutions.
 
Lloydbm41 said:
Well, we are about to see 2 small watch sized displays, we have 3.5", 4", 4.7" and 5.5" phones, plus we are about to see a 12.2" iPad Pro added to the Mini and regular iPad sizes.
I believe Apple are staying within the same resolution, just double and tripling (and soon maybe quadrupling?) resolutions.

I don't see things getting better any time soon. In fact, I see Apple having the same growing pains that Google had in managing multiple sizes and 'maybe' resolutions.
Click to expand...
I can see them dropping support for 3.5 and 4 inch phones.
 
...add Bank of America to the list of apps that need to update for the higher resolution. The app works fine but it would be nice to see it updated to use the screen space better.
 
There's simply no excuse for expensive paid for apps like TomTom to be without 6+ support 4-5 months down the line.
Also Ebay, I know it's a free app but we sellers send a lot of money their way and they should update their app accordingly.
 
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