Apple purged 47,300 broken & outdated App Store titles in October

AppleInsider

Apple began its promised purge of the iOS App Store in October, pulling some 47,300 titles, according to third-party research data published on Tuesday.

App removals jumped 238 percent last month, according to intelligence firm Sensor Tower, quoted by TechCrunch. Figures were also about 3.4 times higher than the monthly average between January and September.

About 28 percent of the deleted apps were games, far higher than the next two categories -- Entertainment and Books -- which accounted for just 8.99 and 8.96 percent, respectively. Education came in fourth at 7 percent, while Lifestyle apps represented just 6 percent.

Apple announced plans to start reviewing old apps in early September, "removing apps that no longer function as intended, don't follow current review guidelines, or are outdated." This included deleting "abandoned" titles which hadn't been given compatibility updates "for a long time."

While Apple said that it would immediately remove apps that crash on launch, it added that it would otherwise send out notifications asking developers to update within 30 days if they wanted to keep their apps available.

Purges are likely ongoing, as prior to October, it was estimated that nearly half of iOS apps hadn't been updated since May 2015. Over a quarter hadn't been updated since Nov. 2013.

blastdoor

It's kinda weird that in a curated store these apps are there at all, but I guess it's good that Apple is now cleaning house. 

spamsandwich

And where can we actually find a searchable list of affected apps? Just guessing that information is completely unavailable.

sflocal

All the fart apps cry out, then silence.

cali

 There's So many apps that we didn't even notice this last month.

mpantone

blastdoor said:

It's kinda weird that in a curated store these apps are there at all, but I guess it's good that Apple is now cleaning house. 

When a developer submits an app to Apple for approval, Apple has no way of knowing if the developer will be vigilant in keeping it updated with the latest iOS and iDevice hardware. They can't predict abandonware in advance. And as time progresses, Apple's idea of what is a useful app changes as it should, reflecting changes to the app marketplace, what's available and how people use their devices. The first five flashlight apps? Great. The next five? Well okay. Now today if there are 300 flashlight apps and two-thirds are them are not being maintained, a good culling is deserved to maintain the App Store's quality level. That's the whole point about periodic maintenance, whether it's brushing your teeth, changing the oil in your car, or raking the leaves. If your regular regimen of periodic maintenance is not enough, sometimes you might have to do a little extra. That's what Apple is doing right now.

monstrosity

About 20 of which were mine! haha

techprod1gy

I applaud Apple for this.  It is important to support those that put the effort into keeping apps updated.  It may make sense to further purge apps based on # of downloads.  Doesn't make sense to keep a bunch of garbage apps available if nobody is downloading them.

spamsandwich

monstrosity said:

About 20 of which were mine! haha

You monster!

skippingrock

So does mean that if we still have some old iOS devices that use these old software that we won't be able to download them in the future? Even if we paid for them!?

crowley

skippingrock said:

So does mean that if we still have some old iOS devices that use these old software that we won't be able to download them in the future? Even if we paid for them!?

Pretty sure anything you've bought will still be available from the Purchased area. I've got apps on there that have long been discontinued and unavailable in the general store.

brakken

I wish goog and ms would copy this activity, buuuuut that would certainly reduce market place app numbers to almost zero, and ms is already at almost zero. 

skippingrock

crowley said:

skippingrock said:

So does mean that if we still have some old iOS devices that use these old software that we won't be able to download them in the future? Even if we paid for them!?

Pretty sure anything you've bought will still be available from the Purchased area. I've got apps on there that have long been discontinued and unavailable in the general store.

I think it would be good to get a confirmation on this. If anyone does before I do, could they post back? If I do, I will post back too.

bestkeptsecret

monstrosity said:

About 20 of which were mine! haha

What are these monstrosities you are adding to the App Store?

misa

bestkeptsecret said:

monstrosity said:

About 20 of which were mine! haha

What are these monstrosities you are adding to the App Store?

I imagine, "flashlight", "highbeams", "christmas lights", "halloween lights", "easter lights", "crazy lights", etc. And all it does is change the color on the screen.

That said, I think the app store should just partition apps/versions by iOS version, and when a certain iOS version hits obsolete, the ability to purchase old versions disappears and only software already purchased can be downloaded. That gives Apple some room to delete software versions that nobody has ever used if they are keeping on top of iOS versions. If someone has an iPhone 4S or an iPad 3, and software is updated to iOS 10 or iOS11 and no longer works on iOS 9.x, then the store should retain the last working version for iOS 9.3.5 and only present the newer version if the iOS device is newer.

Right now the iOS partitions would be
iOS 1.0 - 3.13 (iPhone, iPod Touch 1G)
iOS 4.2.1 (iPhone 3G, iPod Touch 2G)
iOS 5.1.1 (iPod Touch 3G, iPad (original) )
iOS 6.1.6 (iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch 4G) A4 parts with 256MB ram
iOS 7.1.2 (iPhone 4) A4 parts with 512MB ram
iOS 9.3.5 (iPhone 4S, iPod Touch 5G, iPad 2, iPad 3(Retina iPad), iPad Mini) A5 parts.
iOS 10.0+ (iPhone 5 and later, iPod Touch 6G, iPad 4, iPad Air and later, iPad Mini 2 and later, iPad Pro), All A6+ parts

Expect the next obsolescence to bump off the A6 for no ARMv8-A/64bit support, then the A7/A8 parts due to the RAM. Right now the iOS 9.x software still supports 32-bit cpu's and largely the entire reason for obsolescence is the products with it are 5 years old and are ARMv7 instructions. The A6 is ARMv7-A(32bit), the A7 and later all use ARMv8-A (64bit).

So Apple, if it really wanted to, could release iOS 11.0, say 64-bit ARMv8-A only, and that bumps off the A6-series parts, and then there is really no reason to obsolete anything else except for the smaller amounts of RAM on the A7/A8 parts.

linkman

This is going to put a dent into the number of apps that Apple can now claim are on the app store. About a 2% dent.