![]() If a user had a problem with an app, it was reasonable to expect them to apply any and all iOS and app updates before complaining about the problem. Advancements of an app to newer versions of the operating system and functionality fixes have always been tightly intertwined on iOS. It is a potential problem for developers if Apple starts re-distributing old versions of apps that their creators thought were safely dead and gone from the App Store. The blame for that unreliability will then fall on the developer. Those that do work may be incredibly unreliable and buggy,” Richter wrote. “The likelihood of any complex app, especially anything API driven, working after several years of neglect are slim. ![]() ![]() In reality, some functionality-rejiggering happens under the surface, Richter says: API adjustments, changes to data models, and sometimes there are changes to address legal issues. “The common misconception here is when an app is updated it is updated to add new features and maybe some bug fixes,” wrote Kyle Richter, founder of Dragon Forged Software, in a blog post. While this is an exciting prospect for users who are still carrying iOS devices so ancient they are no longer upgradeable to the latest versions, it creates a diverging path that developers might have to account for. Now, it seems that if that user tries to download the app, a dialog box will pop up offering to let them download “the last compatible version” if one is available. If the app needed iOS 6, for instance, and a user was running 5, that user would be out of luck. ![]() Until recently, there were no two ways about the version of iOS that an app required to run. While the new feature serves customers in that the App Store will no longer deny them just because they haven’t updated in a while, it could put an unnecessary onus on developers, who were apparently not even notified of the change. Apple has added new compatibility features that will allow users running a less-than-current version of iOS to download old versions of apps on the App Store, according to a post on Reddit late Monday (the dialog pop-up was recreated by Engadget). ![]()
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