Technology
Check your iPhone NOW as thousands of apps set to vanish – as Apple says 2.8MILLION have been banned from App Store
APPLE is binning thousands of apps from its App Store as part of an overhaul to get rid of outdated software.
The U.S. tech giant has warned affected developers that they have 30 days to get their act together or face the chop.
GettyCrackdown targeting apps two years or older[/caption]
@protopopApp-makers say the move is ‘unfair’ on indie developers[/caption]
News of the cull emerged last week after angry app makers leaked an email sent by the Cupertino tech firm warning of the change.
The message told recipients that their products had “not been updated in a significant amount of time”.
“If no update is submitted within 30 days, the app will be removed from sale,” the firm wrote.
On April 29, Apple issued a statement confirming the plans, stating that apps that are being removed aren’t used by anyone anyway.
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Apps in the company’s crosshairs “have not been updated within the last three years and fail to meet a minimal download threshold”.
That means the software “has not been downloaded at all or extremely few times during a rolling 12 month period”, Apple said.
The company added that developers of outdated apps have received an email notifying them of possible removal.
In order to be spared the chop, developers must update their apps within the 30-day window.
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It’s part of Apple’s App Store Improvements process, which aims to enhance the user experience and ensure that apps are safe from bugs that could be exploited by hackers.
The firm said that it has removed almost 2.8million apps as part of the process since its launch in 2016.
Messages sent to app-makers sparked fury online last week.
They argued that the policy and amount of time they were given to make changes were unfair to smaller, independent developers.
Game maker Robert Kabwe tweeted that his free Motivoto title has been targeted because it’s more than two years old.
The indie developer said he’s now “working myself to to bone after my day job, trying my best to scrape a living from my indie games, trying to keep up” with constant changes.
“I feel sick,” he complained. “This is not cool.
“Console games from 2000 are still available for sale. This is an unfair barrier to indie devs.”
Another annoyed app maker said his FlickType Keyboard for the visually impaired has also be hit because it hasn’t been updated in two years.
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For those who have outdated apps on their iPhones installed already, there’s no need to worry.
They’re only disappearing from the App Store, meaning that as long as you don’t uninstall them they’ll remain on your device.
@lazerwalkerDevelopers have 30 days to sort their apps out[/caption]
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