App Store Improvements (opens in new tab)

I thought they were pulled from the App Store if the developer account hosting them was not renewed? Or did that change?

It would be nice if there were some kind of per-app charge because some of the spam app houses (who just churn out junk trying to trick people) must have TONS of apps and adding that little cost (maybe $10 to publish the first time, $5 a year) might be enough to cut down own it.

Who pays the the dev program license?

Can you not request that they pull it?

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple also followed this up with some more manual vetting of app names. I'm not sure if this part of the review guidelines is new, but it seems relevant:

> 2.3.7 Choose a unique app name, assign keywords that accurately describe your app, and don’t try to pack any of your metadata with trademarked terms, popular app names, or other irrelevant phrases just to game the system. App names must be limited to 50 characters and should not include terms or descriptions that are not the name of the app. Apple may modify inappropriate keywords at any time.

Maybe they should keep the app in the store, but de-list it and don't include it in search? Require a direct URL or invite for those. It would remove the clutter, but still allow people to get legacy apps that still function, but that you don't want showing up randomly to app store users.

I think his point was that "developer has abandoned it" doesn't imply the app has no value.

An extreme example of a dev abandoning an app would be the Monster Hunter app by Capcom. Back when iOS 9 dropped, it introduced a bug where Monster Hunter just wouldn't launch at all. Unfortunately, I can't find an archived version of their release notes (the only one thats been archived is from 2014 [0]), but Capcom basically said "This app does not, and will never work, on iOS 9". Under Apples old rules, this was cool. No worries. But under the new rules, this app would be removed immediately.

I don't think apps should be removed for having non-retina assets, or not supporting 4.7" or 5.5" displays. But if the app truly doesn't work anymore, and hasn't for a while, then I would consider that being abandoned. Even then, Apple will be working with devs to try and get the issues sorted

>"We are implementing an ongoing process of evaluating apps for these issues, notifying their developers, and removing problematic and abandoned apps from the App Store. " (from the email sent to developers)

[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20140923001007/https://itunes.ap...

Let me introduce you to this thing called DOSBOX, it's quite awesome: https://www.dosbox.com/

The sad thing is that, the way the appstore works, we will likely never get a "iosbox".

There is a certain amount of updates in iOS that can change the way things were before so it may no longer work.

Among other things Apple is going all 64-bit with their devices, it's not hard to believe the day will come soon (maybe iOS 11 or 12) that they say "we're not going to bother with 32-bit software compatibility" and software that was never recompiled will stop working.

As it is some software from iOS 2 or 3 still works, some has been broken horribly for years. Apple does a surprisingly good job with backwards compatibility, but it has it's limits.

>I mean, my DOS and Win 3.1 software no longer works either...

Don't know about Windows 3.1 but I'm guessing you could install DOS in a VM with associated software. (I've had DOS running on relatively modern machines but it's been a while.)

Well, the thread is about "App Store Improvements". That's the title of the post. Also, I AM a mobile developer... I mostly browse the web on my iPad. I use very few premium apps. Procreate was the last one that I purchased.

Anyway - please explain to me why should I pay $4.99 for a simple network utility that lets me do PING, NSLOOKUP, TRACEROUTE, etc? Do you really have a problem if I spend my time searching for a free app that doesn't have ads before I decide to buy one? And why do you think I should be responsible for supporting developers who spent a whole week building some low-hanging-fruit app?

As a matter of fact, I know how to build both native and hybrid iOS apps, so sometimes if I can't find an app I just build it myself. I can't imagine anyone having a problem with that.

Well, except for Apple. I don't like Apple very much so I avoid giving them any money at all if I can. I always buy used or refurbished Apple hardware from Amazon, Ebay and other places and I think long and hard before purchasing any iOS app since Apple gets 30%.

The problem is there are a TON of low-effort apps that are free and have ads. So if you want a good app you have to trudge through a ton of them in search results to find an app that isn't effectively a tool to trick people into ads.

If you could choose to see only paid apps or those with IAPs you'd have an easier time finding apps that weren't trying to shove an ad in your face.

Some apps do ads very well. Some acceptably. MANY do not. AT ALL.

Not original commenter, but yes. And I agree with his position.

Back on topic, does this mean that this new policy, Apps will get delisted, or will I no longer be able to download the binary?

Agree. I think it's useful being able to see the names of IAP items before downloading an app. A flag for "Includes ads" would be easy to add and useful. It's very rare that an ad-supported app won't be quite ugly, so it'd be a reasonable filter.

Do you have any source for that? I believe this was the first occurrence of a jailbreaking app that was available from the App Store itself.

Really? I was under the impression once an app was removed from the iOS App Store it was unavailable for download even to those who previously had it.

Yeah, I'm wondering if they're now going to be pulled from the store for "violating" the sandbox guideline (despite previously being grandfathered in).

They can run them in simulators for that, easily search their metadata for those that haven't been updated since date X or were compiled for iOS 6 or 7 or some other OS that they decide to use as a cutoff point.