Apple appears to be making a push to remove apps from the App Store that have not been updated in years, according to an email screenshot shared by affected developers.
Titled App Store Improvement Notice, the message suggests that apps that have not been updated for “a significant amount of time” will be removed from the App Store unless a new update is made. The email added that users who have already downloaded an app will still be able to access it.
“You can keep this app available for new users to discover and download from the App Store by submitting an update for review in 30 days,” the email said. “If no update is submitted in 30 days, the app will be removed from sale.”
I feel sick. Apple just sent me an email saying they’re removing my free game Motivoto because its more than 2 years old.
It’s part of their App improvement system.
This is not cool. Console games from 2000 are still available for sale.
This is an unfair barrier to indie devs. pic.twitter.com/7XNcLfiEcR
— Protopop Games (@protopop) April 23, 2022
On Apple’s App Store Improvements page, the company said: “We are implementing an ongoing process of evaluating apps, removing apps that no longer function as intended, don’t follow current review guidelines, or are outdated.”
However, this page is not timestamped, so it is not clear when Apple last updated the notice. The tech giant first said that it would start removing outdated apps in 2016.
Apple isn’t the only company looking at outdated apps. Earlier this month, Google shared plans to limit the visibility of outdated apps on its Play Store from the start of November this year, The Verge reported.
Responding to the latest Apple news, Valve software developer Fletcher Dunn tweeted that Microsoft has a “Hippocratic approach” when dealing with older apps. He added that the company “does an absolutely heroic job of backwards compatibility”, which has been seen with Xbox games.
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