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iOS 11 Will Break Compatability With An Estimated 200,000 Apps

From the games I have that will stop working:
Infinity Blade
Wolfenstein 3D
Doom
GTA: San Andreas (this one is strange as all other GTA games have been updated to 64 bit a year ago).
Ravensword
Metal Slug X
Metal Slug 3
Bard's Tale
All Marathon Games
Metal Slug
Metal Slug 2
Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
Ravensword 2
Lego Star Wars Saga
Galaxy On Fire
Dungeon Hunter 4
Dungeon Hunter 3


That's it, I'm fucking done with this bullshit.

Fake Edit: And as a bonus, my banking app from one of the biggest banks in Poland.
How do you check your app?
 
How do you check your app?

You need to have iOS 10.3 installed and then go to Settings->General->About->Applications (if you have any 32 bit apps you can tap on Applications and it will show you the list of apps that will stop working in future iOS versions).
 
Newer platforms not supporting older games? That's something you've dealt with physical since the atari.

Existing hardware intentionally removing support for games that used to work on it, though? There are things that come to mind in the regular game world but they are side functionalities instead of games, Wii having MP3 playback in Photo Channel replaced by AAC which was revertible without affecting rest of the system if you didn't get your Wii with newer Photo Channel on board, and PS3 Phat losing Linux support which was a considerably bigger mess and resulted in money being awarded to some. Some digital games got nuke-and-delisted but still, PS4 firmware updates don't uninstall PT.

There were somewhat comparable events with Windows (most recently, SecuROM killer, earlier hardware driver removal for things) but comparing Windows to iOS you have multitude of options to deal with that without breaking your warranty.
 
How anyone can be OK with this is beyond me. 64-bit processors are a thing for desktop PC since 2003 and you can still use 32-bit apps and games just fine.
 
We can't let the church bury the truth!

kPA1gM4.png




But this really sucks. Pretty much the only games I play on iOS are JRPG ports and now FFT is gonna break...
This one will be painful. SE doesn't have the best track record with these as they either take a million years to fix something or they just remove the app from the store altogether.
 
Fuck, also my beloved Cave titles are part of the list. I spent some serious cash on those. Also, goodbye DungeonRaid, the best match3 game ever made.
 
How anyone can be OK with this is beyond me. 64-bit processors are a thing for desktop PC since 2003 and you can still use 32-bit apps and games just fine.

Desktop PCs don't have to worry about battery life.

Whenever you load up a 32-bit app on modern iOS, the OS has to load up all the 32-processes, on top of all the 64-bit stuff it's doing, consuming power and battery life.
 
It's a one time thing. 64 bit for the foreseeable future solves a ton of shit.

Not like we are suddenly gonna jump again to 128 in 5 years.

This is a one time hurdle.
 
How anyone can be OK with this is beyond me. 64-bit processors are a thing for desktop PC since 2003 and you can still use 32-bit apps and games just fine.

Apple's always done hard cuts like this. even within the OSX upgrade chain there's been a couple of hard break points. They're seemingly not interested in long tail compatibility.
 
Desktop PCs don't have to worry about battery life.

Whenever you load up a 32-bit app on modern iOS, the OS has to load up all the 32-processes, on top of all the 64-bit stuff it's doing, consuming power and battery life.

So? Just warn the user before loading the app. I find it ridiculous than an iPad, whose main purpose is entertainment, will lose access to so many games, some of them true classics, and everyone is like "Hey it's Apple!" or "It's a one time thing!".

Now imagine Microsoft dropping DX9c (which is from 2004 iirc) and making 11 or newer mandatory, and the shitstorm that would ensue.
 
As a mobile game dev, we've been forced to update a number of apps we otherwise hadn't planned to. The good news is that it actually turned out to be easier that we'd specced out to take our games to 64bit, and we've taken the opportunity to improve a few things and add modern OS support for things like stickers.

Not all our games will be updated unfortunately as the cost and effort of updating is large relative to any kind of return. We've taken the hit on some of our catalogue, but for some titles the economics are just too broken.


Ultimately I think this will be good for devs continuing to invest in the App Store and, the loss of some number of legacy games aside, gamers as well. The number of small, unmaintained, or otherwise abandoned apps about to be delisted is staggering which should have a positive impact on discovery, helping gamers find the experiences they want more easily, and helping devs more readily reach their customers.


For those worried about losing access to legacy games or apps, remember Apple has a no questions asked policy where you can ask for refunds years after you purchased something, and even after an app has been delisted. So, at least you should be able to recoup some or all of those purchases.
 
So? Just warn the user before loading the app. I find it ridiculous than an iPad, whose main purpose is entertainment, will lose access to so many games, some of them true classics, and everyone is like "Hey it's Apple!" or "It's a one time thing!".

Now imagine Microsoft dropping DX9c (which is from 2004 iirc) and making 11 or newer mandatory, and the shitstorm that would ensue.

I honestly don't think a single person would care if they did.
 
From the games I have that will stop working:
Infinity Blade
Wolfenstein 3D
Doom
GTA: San Andreas (this one is strange as all other GTA games have been updated to 64 bit a year ago).
Bard's Tale
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
Lego Star Wars Saga
Galaxy On Fire

That's it, I'm fucking done with this bullshit.

time to switch to android .. seriously, these are my "go to" games. Still have to finish San Andreas .. but I trust in Rockstar to update this flagship-game, as well as the Baldurs Gate one. ID Software .. not so much. Bye, Doom :(
 
Desktop PCs don't have to worry about battery life.

Whenever you load up a 32-bit app on modern iOS, the OS has to load up all the 32-processes, on top of all the 64-bit stuff it's doing, consuming power and battery life.

Yeah, because PCs are all desktops, right?

Not knowing much about iOS, I can't rule out that it's a significant burden to support multiarch installations on this ecosystem (or other ones), but come on. The slow down message is enough of a hint on older devices.

For Apple, older, especially ad-free, programs that just stayed working somehow getting cut off is probably considered a feature and not a bug, prompting the user to seek a replacement. I won't be surprised if they end up doing it again with a different scapegoat.

---

Very interested about those conflicting Ghost Trick reports by the way. Seems like seeking a DS cart was wiser than it appeared.

I honestly don't think a single person would care if they did.

A single person? Well, that's easy to rebuke... I would. I'm regularly launching some D3D9 games, hell, D3D7 ones.
 
Newer platforms not supporting older games? That's something you've dealt with physical since the atari.
It's a software update, not a hardware change that is preventing the older apps from running.
If they said that the iPhone 8 would only support 64-bit apps, I'd be annoyed, but okay with it.
I'm not okay with an update to my existing phone disabling 50+ games just because Apple wants improve their battery life stats by not allowing them to run.

Additionally, Apple should have stopped selling these apps as soon as the decision was made to no longer support 32-bit.
I have games that I bought this year which are on the unsupported apps list.
 
I am ok with this.
However i am not ok with my iphone fucking downloading ios updates and trying to forcefeed me their so called "upgrades" that do nothing else then slowing down my phone😑
 
I am ok with this.
However i am not ok with my iphone fucking downloading ios updates and trying to forcefeed me their so called "upgrades" that do nothing else then slowing down my phone😑

I'm convinced it's done to drive phone sales.
 
Fitting that Stone Age will be the game that keeps my iPad 2 from ever being updated again.

Edit: Actually it's already stuck on ios9 anyway it seems
 
From my perspective, making the upgrade is literally just adding a compiler flag. Does it introduce signifigant incompatibility in pure native apps (i work in unity, though write some native plugins for ios)
 
I'm amazed that Ghost Trick will still work in iOS11.

Out of all my games, the incompatibilities that are really going to hurt are Final Fantasy Tactics, FTL (which will be patched) and World of Goo.
 
I'm amazed that Ghost Trick will still work in iOS11.

Out of all my games, the incompatibilities that are really going to hirt are Final Fantasy Tactics, FTL (which will be patched) and World of Goo.

Ghost Trick returned to the App Store last year after being updated.

And snap for the three you listed!
 
The only one that matters to me from that list is FTL. I hope they update it
Someone posted about it on this page. It's getting an update.

Ghost Trick returned to the App Store last year after being updated.

It was killing me that I couldn't save my progress for a year or so and I was so happy when Capcom finally fixed the game! (in related news, the way Apple happily kills compatibility with old apps is a big downside to iOS)
 
But mobile and all digital are the future of gaming!
More like "Closed systems are the future of gaming!", which they probably are (PS4/X1/NS). While this probably won't happen on consoles except maybe between gens, it does on PC, but the beauty is that it is open which means its possible to fix it without the devs
 
Apple sells tens of million iOS devices in a MONTH. ya in a month. This doesnt make a big difference, developer will bend over and support this. They will update their app and do whatever they have to.
 
I pretty much assume all the old Cave games will stay 32 bit.

I have older iOS devices that I'll keep around for the 32 bit apps from dead companies.

going 64 bit only will allow Apple's next gen chips to be much more efficient in use of space, no circuits dedicated to working at 32. I'm not super stoked about it happening already but the writing was on the wall about this ever since the iPhone 5S launched as 64 bit and that was 4 years ago.
 
Yea but some of best games that people have paid for no longer have devs to update them and no they are not buggy alot of the times.

My advice just stay on your old firmware only update when you absolutely have to thats basically how I treat every IOS update.

Yup, I'm still on iOS 8.4 because I'm jailbroken. No newer version of iOS can trump that. As far as app updates, I rarely bother unless the app's release notes specifically mention something of benefit. Cripes, I still have Facebook v10 installed which includes Messenger.
 
With the release of iOS 10.3, it has become clear that apps that do not support 64-bit architecture will not work in iOS 11.


Now does that mean apps going forward have to be universal (64+32), or that iOS11 will drop all 32 bit devices?
 
So I checked this which made me remember that I do not play many games on my iPhone and reminded me of games I had totally forgotten about. So the stuff that I have that won't be getting an update are:
- The AC Unity app
- SILENT HILL
- MGS4 TOUCH
- Chu Chu Rocket
- Shin Megami Tensei
- The RE.Net app

While I'm not too broken up about losing these (except for maybe SMT... and Chu Chu Rocket now that I remembered it) it does suck that this is happening. This isn't totally unlike what happens with games on the PC but at least if I'm willing to do a little work I can still play something like Silent Hill 2 on a modern PC.
 
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