Nearly one-third of App Store and Play Store apps may get removed

I have no problem with removing stale apps. I know everyone freaked out when Apple said they would remove apps that haven't been updated in the last 3 years, but to me that isn't really an issue. Can a 3 rear old app still work just fine? Sure. But does no updates in 3 years point to an app abandoned by its devs? Probably. Even if you have nothing to update, it takes minutes to simply update the copyright date on your about page or make some other minor change and reupload, really not an issue if you are active.

The only place where I see that being annoying is if the devs really have abandoned it, but there is still a community of users using the app. In that case, Apple still allows existing users to redownload it. For everyone else, okay, maybe slightly annoying, but a dead app is dead, eventually you will not be able to use it anymore.

On 16/05/2022 at 01:59 PM, sphbecker said:

I have no problem with removing stale apps. I know everyone freaked out when Apple said they would remove apps that haven't been updated in the last 3 years, but to me that isn't really an issue. Can a 3 rear old app still work just fine? Sure. But does no updates in 3 years point to an app abandoned by its devs? Probably. Even if you have nothing to update, it takes minutes to simply update the copyright date on your about page or make some other minor change and reupload, really not an issue if you are active.

The only place where I see that being annoying is if the devs really have abandoned it, but there is still a community of users using the app. In that case, Apple still allows existing users to redownload it. For everyone else, okay, maybe slightly annoying, but a dead app is dead, eventually you will not be able to use it anymore.

Ideally, a responsible developer should open source the app if they've decided that they are no longer planning to maintain that app. I know it can't be made possible by companies using crucial proprietary bits in their apps or server side features, but in that case it is the company's responsibility to remove the app themselves than let them languish without updates.

Allowing existing users to re-download that app is a temporary band-aid for people who've already identified that they need it. If someone a few years down the line needs it, well tough luck, they should've downloaded the app even before they realized they needed it. This is where side-loading and alternate app stores can help solve the problem, but Apple is adamant to do anything about it.

On 16/05/2022 at 02:27 PM, Tuskd said:

Ideally, a responsible developer should open source the app if they've decided that they are no longer planning to maintain that app. I know it can't be made possible by companies using crucial proprietary bits in their apps or server side features, but in that case it is the company's responsibility to remove the app themselves than let them languish without updates.

Allowing existing users to re-download that app is a temporary band-aid for people who've already identified that they need it. If someone a few years down the line needs it, well tough luck, they should've downloaded the app even before they realized they needed it. This is where side-loading and alternate app stores can help solve the problem, but Apple is adamant to do anything about it.

Yes, I really hope that becomes a trend, especially for apps and services required to support hardware. If a company is going out of business that sold hardware that can't work without their software, they really should open source not only the apps, but any server-side code and the firmware. That way some one could come in and open the platform up if they wanted to. Otherwise the hardware becomes trash.

This is something I would actually like to see regulated, basically a law saying that if you discontinue software (for whatever reason) that is required to make hardware function, that you much open source the software.

On 16/05/2022 at 01:59 PM, sphbecker said:

I have no problem with removing stale apps. I know everyone freaked out when Apple said they would remove apps that haven't been updated in the last 3 years, but to me that isn't really an issue. Can a 3 rear old app still work just fine? Sure. But does no updates in 3 years point to an app abandoned by its devs? Probably. Even if you have nothing to update, it takes minutes to simply update the copyright date on your about page or make some other minor change and reupload, really not an issue if you are active.

The only place where I see that being annoying is if the devs really have abandoned it, but there is still a community of users using the app. In that case, Apple still allows existing users to redownload it. For everyone else, okay, maybe slightly annoying, but a dead app is dead, eventually you will not be able to use it anymore.

I'm sure they could just do a version bump "We're still here!" and be done with it. I can't imagine it being difficult.

I believe some used to do the same for addons in WoW that still operated fine but just updated a small bit so that it wouldn't read as out of date when logging in and managing them.

While I can understand the complaint since the apps may still work, there's also a LOT of apps seeing no update at all, and for the ones that don't operate anymore, can't see it hurting to remove the cruft from them. This is something I really think about across the board too, specifically with how much data YouTube must manage dealing with so many damn hours of video, especially when you have duplicate vids on top of it.

On 16/05/2022 at 01:59 PM, sphbecker said:

I have no problem with removing stale apps. I know everyone freaked out when Apple said they would remove apps that haven't been updated in the last 3 years, but to me that isn't really an issue. Can a 3 rear old app still work just fine? Sure. But does no updates in 3 years point to an app abandoned by its devs? Probably. Even if you have nothing to update, it takes minutes to simply update the copyright date on your about page or make some other minor change and reupload, really not an issue if you are active.

The only place where I see that being annoying is if the devs really have abandoned it, but there is still a community of users using the app. In that case, Apple still allows existing users to redownload it. For everyone else, okay, maybe slightly annoying, but a dead app is dead, eventually you will not be able to use it anymore.

yeah this is one decision I actually support for once. fake/malicious apps more often than not will fall into the stale category too as those are likely uploaded and never touched again so a lot of those should get purged as a side effect too I would think.