6 ms·

It's not that games from 2009 don't run, only games that haven't been updated since 2009 don't run. All a developer needs to do is recompile and push an update.

_ph_ 9y ago
I have a ton of apps no longer supported on iOS 11. They come in 2 main groups: - apps which were abandoned - apps which were replaced by a successor. In the absence of update fees, this is the easiest way to generate new revenue for continuous updates. I am happy to pay for app maintenance, but this scheme means, that there is no automatic data migration from the old to the new apps.
- misnome 9y ago
  > apps which were replaced by a successor Hello, Omnigraffle. I bought this on iPad, used this something like, three times before having a need to use it over a year later and "Sorry! There is a new version to buy and your version is no longer supported, or runs!". It wasn't cheap, as apps go. Never, ever buying anything from Omni, ever again. Edit: To add details, I bought this for £35 on iOS 7. When iOS 8 came around, it was discontinued, left to crash on open, and you had the "opportunity" to buy version 2 all over again.
  - jasonmp85 9y ago
    They rightly don't want your "business".
    - EpicEng 9y ago
      What do you mean by that? Of course a developer doesn't have to support version X forever, but the damn thing no longer runs at all? This was paid software. I guess OP was renting it for some undisclosed period of time, and you think that's acceptable?
  - kbenson 9y ago
    That seems wrong. I wonder if you could petition apple for a refund in the case where developers purposefully sunset an app purposefully but for no technical reason (which I understand isn't really what this thread about, nor may not match your situation entirely).
    - JohnTHaller 9y ago
      I don't think the dev went in and broke the old version. I think it didn't run on the new OS and they built a new version that did. This happens in the desktop space as well where there are apps that worked on Windows 7 but don't on Windows 10. You can buy a newer version that does work on Windows 10. This is generally for much more involved apps that are quite expensive to build and to buy.
  - irrational 9y ago
    Same with the American History Dictionary of the English Language. The app costs about $30 and they release a new version every year or two and kill the old version. After the second time this happened I stopped playing that game, which is a shame since this is my favorite dictionary.
  - amatecha 9y ago
    Similar with Tweetbot, which seems to release a new version as a separate app every couple years or so? The version I reluctantly bought (knowing they do this) is no longer updated but had long-standing bugs even when it was being actively developed. The experience makes me reluctant to buy any apps at all on App Store, tbh.
    - jeffbax 9y ago
      You pay $5 for Tweetbot, and they work delivering updates for years before asking for another (usually b/c of many new features or hard work updating the UI for modern iOS) It's one of the most polished apps around. You don't owe the Developer's time indefinitely from one $5 purchase, and you're free to move to an alternative. I'm happy to continue to support the apps I love -- they generally aren't asking a whole lot. Additionally, in the case of Twitter clients, they also can't add a lot of new customers b/c Twitter has capped their allowed clients. If they didn't charge customers again, they wouldn't be able to sustain the work with new ones.
    - mullingitover 9y ago
      Same thing with WeightBot, which I have been using for years and now doesn't work with iOS 11, and I'm losing years of data. I would pay for an update to the app, but it's completely abandoned.
      - misnome 9y ago
        I also loved weightbot, but gave up on it long ago. You might be able to pull the data off with one of the filesystem, readers, if that's worth anything to you at all.
  - module0000 9y ago
    This is par for the course with Omni software - a lesson I've learned as well.
masklinn 9y ago
You seem to have no understanding whatsoever of the funding system and life cycle of games. Games are generally funded by a publisher who retains all rights to the game, the developer is contracted for some time, then goes on to work on something else. A publisher is not going to pay for the update of a paid-upfront game from 5+ years ago, there's no ROI in that. Without a continuous revenue stream, publishers don't keep updating games. Furthermore, both publisher and original developer can fold, leaving the game orphaned.
CJefferson 9y ago
I made a game in 2009, it was quite popular, got a bunch of positive reviews, I gave it away for free. I had to keep giving Apple £100/year just to let people keep downloading the game for free. At some point I tried recompiling it for a newer iOS, and I get hundreds of message about depricated APIs that I had to change to get it accepted by Apple. Instead I let it drop. I can't even put a copy online for people to download, the game is just dead and gone thanks to Apple. I can still run Windows games from 20 year ago and with DOSbox, DOS games from 30 years ago. My own iOS game on the other hand is dead, never to be revived.
- wingerlang 9y ago
  Open source it? Or try to sell it.
  - irrational 9y ago
    Those probably are the only valid options. But let's face it. Unless the game was extremely popular, or has a cult following, it is rather unlikely that anyone will want to pick it up and run with it. I play board games and there are games nowadays that require an app to play (see for example Alchemists). I've argued that this is a bad idea since at some point the apps will probably stop working as we see happening in iOS 11. But people always argue back that someone will be sure to create a version of the app to keep it going. I may be a cynic, but I think that is incredibly naive to believe that will happen.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      I used to have a board game or two that required a VHS tape. Sure, VCRs exist and can be found, but it’s such an outdated technology that people aren’t going to search them out. I know there are some games that require LaserDisc too, same thing but even worse. It’s not necessarily a new development.
    - wingerlang 9y ago
      Probably won't happen if he just throws it out on github, but if he can show and prove that it "was quite popular, got a bunch of positive reviews" somehow AND gave some brief overview of the project and effort required to update it then the chance is higher.
0x0 9y ago
I think you have no experience with updating legacy iOS applications to modern SDKs. It is not just a matter of "recompile and push", it is: * Ensuring your code still works now that CGFloat and ints change size (can easily trip up code, I've seen things fail subtly and then grow into huge errors with combinations of NSInteger and "-1" etc) * Updating all UI to handle new behavior (yes, just linking with a new compiler will automatically opt-in to new behavior that might totally break interactions and taps) * If your app is really old, rewrite all UI to not assume a 320px wide screen (this can be brutal) * Handling new restrictions and requirements such as supporting IPv6-only network (fun if your app is used to configure an IoT device over IPv4 LAN), and Transport Security (fun if your app allows users to connect to random servers around the world) * Handling new permission models for camera/gps/contacts/photo library/audio library access, including refactoring your code to deal with asynchronous results * Updating all your graphic assets for @2x and @3x resolution as well as new app icon sizes (hope you still have those .PSD files, and hope your designer wasn't doing pixel-perfect painting for your bitmaps!) * The original developer must still be in business, still pay the $100/year developer fee, and still have the source code and the talent to fix it.
- arrty88 9y ago
  On top of all the technical details, you also have to abide by all the new AppStore policies to even get approved.
- cjf101 9y ago
  And this is the relatively easy case of an app built using Apple technologies. It can be much more difficult if you built a game using a cross platform game engine filled with binary 32bit libraries. If the engine is still around, you might be able to pay for a license for a newer version of the engine, but then you likely also need to deal with the SDK and format changes in the new engine as well as any iOS specific things you have. Still, if software is your business and this software in particular makes you money, it's really not _that_ expensive to do.
- H1Supreme 9y ago
  Exactly. I had a legacy app like this that was generating next to nothing in revenue. I lol'd at all the work I would have had to do to bring it up two versions of iOS, and left it alone.
cocoviper 9y ago
Unfortunately a lot of developpers will not be able to update their app with the new Apple Guideline released this Year. They are currently blocking any app that look alike or have the same features. The guideline is so vague that a huge amount of Developpers including my company are forced to remove their apps or wait until apple removes them with no ability to update the app or communicate to the users that the app is being removed.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > Unfortunately a lot of developpers will not be able to update their app with the new Apple Guideline released this Year. Which part of the guidelines, specifically?
- valuearb 9y ago
  So you wrote clones of better selling apps?

_ph_ 9y ago

I have a ton of apps no longer supported on iOS 11. They come in 2 main groups: - apps which were abandoned - apps which were replaced by a successor. In the absence of update fees, this is the easiest way to generate new revenue for continuous updates. I am happy to pay for app maintenance, but this scheme means, that there is no automatic data migration from the old to the new apps.

misnome 9y ago
> apps which were replaced by a successor Hello, Omnigraffle. I bought this on iPad, used this something like, three times before having a need to use it over a year later and "Sorry! There is a new version to buy and your version is no longer supported, or runs!". It wasn't cheap, as apps go. Never, ever buying anything from Omni, ever again. Edit: To add details, I bought this for £35 on iOS 7. When iOS 8 came around, it was discontinued, left to crash on open, and you had the "opportunity" to buy version 2 all over again.
- jasonmp85 9y ago
  They rightly don't want your "business".
  - EpicEng 9y ago
    What do you mean by that? Of course a developer doesn't have to support version X forever, but the damn thing no longer runs at all? This was paid software. I guess OP was renting it for some undisclosed period of time, and you think that's acceptable?
- kbenson 9y ago
  That seems wrong. I wonder if you could petition apple for a refund in the case where developers purposefully sunset an app purposefully but for no technical reason (which I understand isn't really what this thread about, nor may not match your situation entirely).
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    I don't think the dev went in and broke the old version. I think it didn't run on the new OS and they built a new version that did. This happens in the desktop space as well where there are apps that worked on Windows 7 but don't on Windows 10. You can buy a newer version that does work on Windows 10. This is generally for much more involved apps that are quite expensive to build and to buy.
- irrational 9y ago
  Same with the American History Dictionary of the English Language. The app costs about $30 and they release a new version every year or two and kill the old version. After the second time this happened I stopped playing that game, which is a shame since this is my favorite dictionary.
- amatecha 9y ago
  Similar with Tweetbot, which seems to release a new version as a separate app every couple years or so? The version I reluctantly bought (knowing they do this) is no longer updated but had long-standing bugs even when it was being actively developed. The experience makes me reluctant to buy any apps at all on App Store, tbh.
  - jeffbax 9y ago
    You pay $5 for Tweetbot, and they work delivering updates for years before asking for another (usually b/c of many new features or hard work updating the UI for modern iOS) It's one of the most polished apps around. You don't owe the Developer's time indefinitely from one $5 purchase, and you're free to move to an alternative. I'm happy to continue to support the apps I love -- they generally aren't asking a whole lot. Additionally, in the case of Twitter clients, they also can't add a lot of new customers b/c Twitter has capped their allowed clients. If they didn't charge customers again, they wouldn't be able to sustain the work with new ones.
  - mullingitover 9y ago
    Same thing with WeightBot, which I have been using for years and now doesn't work with iOS 11, and I'm losing years of data. I would pay for an update to the app, but it's completely abandoned.
    - misnome 9y ago
      I also loved weightbot, but gave up on it long ago. You might be able to pull the data off with one of the filesystem, readers, if that's worth anything to you at all.
- module0000 9y ago
  This is par for the course with Omni software - a lesson I've learned as well.

masklinn 9y ago

You seem to have no understanding whatsoever of the funding system and life cycle of games. Games are generally funded by a publisher who retains all rights to the game, the developer is contracted for some time, then goes on to work on something else. A publisher is not going to pay for the update of a paid-upfront game from 5+ years ago, there's no ROI in that. Without a continuous revenue stream, publishers don't keep updating games. Furthermore, both publisher and original developer can fold, leaving the game orphaned.

CJefferson 9y ago

I made a game in 2009, it was quite popular, got a bunch of positive reviews, I gave it away for free. I had to keep giving Apple £100/year just to let people keep downloading the game for free. At some point I tried recompiling it for a newer iOS, and I get hundreds of message about depricated APIs that I had to change to get it accepted by Apple. Instead I let it drop. I can't even put a copy online for people to download, the game is just dead and gone thanks to Apple. I can still run Windows games from 20 year ago and with DOSbox, DOS games from 30 years ago. My own iOS game on the other hand is dead, never to be revived.

wingerlang 9y ago
Open source it? Or try to sell it.
- irrational 9y ago
  Those probably are the only valid options. But let's face it. Unless the game was extremely popular, or has a cult following, it is rather unlikely that anyone will want to pick it up and run with it. I play board games and there are games nowadays that require an app to play (see for example Alchemists). I've argued that this is a bad idea since at some point the apps will probably stop working as we see happening in iOS 11. But people always argue back that someone will be sure to create a version of the app to keep it going. I may be a cynic, but I think that is incredibly naive to believe that will happen.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    I used to have a board game or two that required a VHS tape. Sure, VCRs exist and can be found, but it’s such an outdated technology that people aren’t going to search them out. I know there are some games that require LaserDisc too, same thing but even worse. It’s not necessarily a new development.
  - wingerlang 9y ago
    Probably won't happen if he just throws it out on github, but if he can show and prove that it "was quite popular, got a bunch of positive reviews" somehow AND gave some brief overview of the project and effort required to update it then the chance is higher.

0x0 9y ago

I think you have no experience with updating legacy iOS applications to modern SDKs. It is not just a matter of "recompile and push", it is: * Ensuring your code still works now that CGFloat and ints change size (can easily trip up code, I've seen things fail subtly and then grow into huge errors with combinations of NSInteger and "-1" etc) * Updating all UI to handle new behavior (yes, just linking with a new compiler will automatically opt-in to new behavior that might totally break interactions and taps) * If your app is really old, rewrite all UI to not assume a 320px wide screen (this can be brutal) * Handling new restrictions and requirements such as supporting IPv6-only network (fun if your app is used to configure an IoT device over IPv4 LAN), and Transport Security (fun if your app allows users to connect to random servers around the world) * Handling new permission models for camera/gps/contacts/photo library/audio library access, including refactoring your code to deal with asynchronous results * Updating all your graphic assets for @2x and @3x resolution as well as new app icon sizes (hope you still have those .PSD files, and hope your designer wasn't doing pixel-perfect painting for your bitmaps!) * The original developer must still be in business, still pay the $100/year developer fee, and still have the source code and the talent to fix it.

arrty88 9y ago
On top of all the technical details, you also have to abide by all the new AppStore policies to even get approved.
cjf101 9y ago
And this is the relatively easy case of an app built using Apple technologies. It can be much more difficult if you built a game using a cross platform game engine filled with binary 32bit libraries. If the engine is still around, you might be able to pay for a license for a newer version of the engine, but then you likely also need to deal with the SDK and format changes in the new engine as well as any iOS specific things you have. Still, if software is your business and this software in particular makes you money, it's really not _that_ expensive to do.
H1Supreme 9y ago
Exactly. I had a legacy app like this that was generating next to nothing in revenue. I lol'd at all the work I would have had to do to bring it up two versions of iOS, and left it alone.

cocoviper 9y ago

Unfortunately a lot of developpers will not be able to update their app with the new Apple Guideline released this Year. They are currently blocking any app that look alike or have the same features. The guideline is so vague that a huge amount of Developpers including my company are forced to remove their apps or wait until apple removes them with no ability to update the app or communicate to the users that the app is being removed.

saagarjha 9y ago
> Unfortunately a lot of developpers will not be able to update their app with the new Apple Guideline released this Year. Which part of the guidelines, specifically?
valuearb 9y ago
So you wrote clones of better selling apps?