After posting last week on a few apps that have now completely disappeared off the app store it made me start to think about where these apps go. Of course, the short answer is nowhere. Except if you have them in your own personal local iTunes account. Other than that, they vanish completely. That's it.
That's a real shame in my opinion. I know that developers interests and priorities can move on and change and an app that was great one day can be forgotten all too quickly without updates. Of course there can be a huge number of reasons for apps disappearing, but I'm interested in ideas about how we might curate or collect those apps that are coming to the end of their app store life to keep them going.
I'm open to ideas and suggestions. Tell me what you think.
5 comments:
The issue is that old apps often need to be updated to stay compliant with the latest version of iOS or new policies. If an app is no longer making any money it's hard to justify spending the time to keep it up to date. Devs could always open source their code, but it's not easy for users to build and install it.
Apple's fault.
They want you to buy new hardware , every year if possible..
The ios updates require most apps to be updated. Most devs dont want to update all the time... A better compatibility would be nice... Apple is turning into a use once , throw away and buy new stuff company...
Ah well.. Humans really need to be potty trained. All the greed is not good....learn to respect yourselves and one another...
Its our hope.
Addendum:
I sure love their (apples) products though;)
if your iDevice is jailbroken, you can install 'cracked' (pirated) apps and if an app's saved on your computer in iTunes or whatever, you can simply install it again
That's what happens when you force a single store to work on devices. Devs are forced to pay the annual fee, and users are forced to buy new devices to keep up with the "evolving" store policies.
And also that is what happens when you don't keep any "legacy" code in an operating system, most apps breaks with every minor updates. If Apple would keep some "legacy" code in IOS this would not be a problem, but Apple has never cared about the past (even if the "past" means last year)
Seriously how many apps from IOS1, IOS2 or IOS3 still works for you guys today? I have way too many fingers to count them.
If you with to keep your old apps, make a backup of your "Mobile Applications" folder inside the iTunes folder, you will never lose an app, even if Apple removes it from the store, which happens all the time as devs who don't pay the 100$ annual fees gets their apps removed from the store, and they cannot host them anywhere else.
This is why I have decided to not purchase apps anymore from Apple, yes apps are cheap, but they rarely works for over a year, ... and then you have to buy new devices every two years if you wish to keep your apps updated (ipad1 user here).
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