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Comments
For the record, I have “little” development experience, not “zero”. LOL. And I hail from a family of programmers and engineers, so I’ve seen both sides of the coin. 👍
And I disagree with many decisions Apple has made, but not this one. There is a lot of cruft in the App Store that needs to be cleaned out.
Are you in favor or not in favor of updated and improved apps? Not clear what your position is here.
I’m not sure there is any disagreement on cleaning out broken apps from the App Store… but the way Apple are going about it is casting a much wider net than this.
I'm just reading this. I've had a stupidly simple $1 dollar app for sale for 9 years, it just displays a table based on a number of parameters. I've tested it with each new iOS release and haven't found the need to fix anything in 4 years. It gets just enough sales to be able to cover the $99 annual fee on its own. Pretty bad move by Apple.
Is it compliant with the latest version of iOS?
Also, what’s the app? I don’t think anyone would care if you posted a link in this thread.
It is, functionality-wise, despite it looking dated.
Then I doubt you're in any danger of removal.
The point is that a lack of updates doesn't mean the app needs updating. Some developers have nailed it. The feature set is right, the performance is good.
The point we are making is that lack of updates does not always mean an app needs updates.
You know, it's actually possible for developers to call (on a phone!) people at Apple to ask them about this issue. I've managed to do it when I had questions. And I've managed to have direct communications with programmers at Apple too. If any developers are in a panic about any of this, they can communicate it directly to Apple or just ask clarifying questions. It's not a reason to lose one's head.
I don't know what you have in mind when asking if the app is complaint with the latest iOS, but Apple doesn't really change that much in iOS (or macOS) version-to-version and they are actually pretty good at updating the frameworks they have in ways that don't break things. If you use Apple's provided layout constraint system for the UI (or the new SwiftUI stuff) then you will most likely not have any problems with new screen sizes when they come along. Apple doesn't tend to break things on purpose.
If I hadn't had to make the one workaround bug fix for the one Apple bug that broke the presets system in my apps, I wouldn't have had to make a single change to any of my apps on iOS to keep them current. Apple did eventually fix that one bug too, so I wouldn't really count that against them.
Apple really doesn't do that many breaking changes. Most of the apps on the App Store are going to work fine for multiple iOS releases without the dev doing anything more than fixing their own bugs or adding new features if they want to. If they don't have any bugs that are a problem for the users or the users don't need any new features, the non-updated app is going to continue to provide functionality for the users that buy it.
“Apple doesn't tend to break things on purpose.”
Agree with you there. Then again, why would anyone want to deliberately break things that are working? The problems are when they unintentionally break things.
Um, no, it isn't. You definitely cannot call Apple about anything to do with their moderation of your app. You can't even get a real answer when you raise question up through the moderation team levels. I've had to do this enough to know. You do not get a human-to-human interaction. What you do get is vague boilerplate responses and hopefully an eventual approval through the automated system with no explanation as to why they finally understood what they were doing wrong.
You do have a couple of support enquiries per year that your $100 pays for, but I really doubt that you are going to get anything more than a link to Apple's vague policy that is already linked in this thread.
My experience is that Apple is stellar at customer support, I've used it several times with great results, and really really pathetic and developer interactions.
For the most part, they don't do that very much either, and, sometimes, they fix it when they do.
There is a perception that Apple makes breaking changes to their products all the time. I was trying to dispel some of that perception in this context.
My internal data suggests that there is a minimum of around 100 new music production users to iOS per day. That number reflects about the average number of LRC5 users that find their way to the app when there haven't been any recent updates to it and I can't find anything exposing new people to it on the web. It's definitely a very rough estimate. I take it as a minimum because I doubt if even the majority of people who make some form of music on iOS ever get LRC5. LRC5 is also free and old, so I don't think the number is going to be an overly high estimate.
Apple arbitrarily removing old apps from sale because of some undefined sell-by-date is going to artificially remove a bunch of really useful and interesting apps from the people that are new to the platform. That really bothers me.
Do you not think that perhaps this is a requirement that may have a bit of 'play' in it, with regard to how universally it is applied? Or do you think that Apple will drive even the simplest of apps towards complete feature-bloat solely to keep in line with requirements?
Also, is there really such a thing as an app that can't be improved? A genuine question.
For the time being, the Appstore is what we have. Guess we'll just have to see how this pans out.
I don't see how that question is relevant. Of course any app can be improved, but not every app returns enough revenue to offset the cost of doing that. Also, no "improvement" is something one simply writes a block of code and shoves it in there. Every change has the potential to introduce other issues. In fact, even recompiling an unchanged app after APIs and 3rd party libraries have been updated has that potential. This means full re-testing. These things take time and shouldn't be forced if the app ain't broken.
Making noise about it is useful though. Very often decisions get made with little thought to their impacts on others. I can imagine the 30 minute meeting at Apple. Some exec gets a bug up their ass about the clutter in the App Store - or maybe was playing golf with someone who read what Google is doing. They froth at the mouth to the App Store VP and, snap, the decision is made. That VP leaves the meeting and says "make it so", and some out of touch lower level communication person fires off some emails.
At least that's the way I saw so many ill-advised things happen in my corporate career. Blow-back from these types of snafus often does result in a change of direction. (Not that anyone from Apple will ever read any of our venting here though.
)
What about if this theoretically "perfect" app had an icon refresh? Would that do it?
I don't like that you take the liberty to misstate what I said. I never implied perfection, only acceptable operability.
That said, the program will still need to be recompiled. If it hasn't been updated in a couple of years then supporting libraries may have changed or been deprecated. It's not safe to assume that even such a small update would be a slam dunk.
Thanks!
Parts of my family line were farmers going back a long way. Being dryland farmers at pretty much the epicenter of the dustbowl took them out of farming and moved them to ranching related things. One of my grandmothers did maintain a small truck farm and raised goats her whole life. No popcorn, but some very good vegetables. I'm not going to say anything about my feelings for the flavor of homemade goat milk ice cream though.
So, let me see if I understand the logic here from Apple's standpoint...
The goal is to reduce the clutter in the App Store. The assumption is made that apps that haven't been updated in the last two years represent this clutter.
They send out emails informing the developer. The developer probably gets annoyed but either:
No matter how I look at it, this just seems like a lazy and not very effective approach. A little more effort put toward targeting which apps to cull, or better yet improving App Store discoverability so that "clutter" apps are less visible in search results, seems like it would be more effective.
Useless post. I can't help it. I'm bored.
Please don't be offended. I was playing devil's advocate, arguably no different from your own statements. You're taking issue with something which isn't central to the post. The central question being, would a "minor" but completely legitimate change be enough? An icon redesign is recognized as being a legitimate change.
I actually hope the answer is no. If they specified carefully what was required, then it would be OK. Apple claims to apply all rules the same to every developer and app. This should be true and easy to follow.
Keep in mind that this culling is going to be done by the review team for the App Store. My experience is that they are not well trained to deal with apps that are not completely mainstream. I really hope that they don't have any leeway in their calls.
Wim's answer is very good and I don't have anything to add to it other than a bit of humor. I have definitely had the experience of seeing updates for a program that I used to be perfectly happy with and internally crying "would you please stop updating this, please?!".
Fair enough. Offense retracted.
The second paragraph of my post directly addresses the central question.
The point is any change is non-trivial, can potentially be a lot of work, and has the potential to introduce unexpected problems.
I didn't even get into potential outside factors:
** When I was trying to learn to develop AUv3's I went through scores of example projects. Some, even some of Apple's own current example projects, failed to compile due to library and API changes since they were written. It took huge amounts of time to find out why, and this was only because others had the same problems and posted about the solutions. If this was my own code there wouldn't have even been that to go on.
Those were just simple example projects. Imagine a complex project that you hadn't even thought about the code for a few years.
Well, the thing is I don't know; the wording is vague enough that it could be. For me it's a small nuisance at worst, even if the app does get pulled, but I can definitely see how it can be a much larger issue for more complicated code bases and development environments, developers with more apps and those that actually depend on the income they generate.
If I were in your position, I'd contact Apple and get a response for your particular case. They're not going to bite. They love developers.
You sound like a politician. You and me gonna fall out, as they say in Cornwall.
You obviously have not dealt with Apple’s developer support
I suggest you read the various anecdotes from developers about the myriad times experienced developers have had their apps rejected with little or no explanation and the difficulty (sometimes impossibility) of having a meaningful conversation with Apple about it.
You imagine a very different relationship between developers and Apple than exists. Those who haven’t experienced would be surprised at the difficulty of achieving meaningful communication with Apple (unless you have friends in important positions).
I've generally been able to get help when it was requested. When I hear nothing but complaints from some developer, ultimately I have to wonder if it's really about them. Apple doesn't owe anyone anything. Software development is a calculated risk, same as any entrepreneurial venture. Either people can live with and learn to navigate these risks, or they can't.