Craig Hockenberry asked developers if they were actively working on an update for their app to add iOS 7 features and compatibility—95% answered yes. What’s more, 52% of developers are going to require iOS 7 for their app. In other words, they are dropping support for all other operating systems.
I’ve been asked a lot about this strategy over the years and I’m in favor of it. Developers should offer their customers the latest and greatest as soon as they can. The only thing that would hold back a developer from doing that is the adoption rate of the operating system. Judging from the fast adoption rate of Apple’s operating systems, that doesn’t appear to be an issue.
While Craig, Twitterific, and the Iconfactory are all awesome, let’s keep in mind a few facts about this just-for-fun poll:
Taken together, these factors are likely to bias the poll towards the iOS-7-friendly results that it eventually produced.
FWIW, I answered no to question 1 and put “6 & 7” as a response to the second question. I will likely pull my apps rather than update them for 7, because they don’t make enough to justify updating. This may be a more popular sentiment than polls like this are indicating; as a consultant, I am seeing zero demand for iOS 7 update work from former clients whose apps are on the store today.
I suppose I’ll get down-voted to hell for saying this, but I think iOS 7 has the makings of a fiasco, if non-updates reveal just how much abandoned gold-rush deadweight is actually in the App Store.
If you’re right it’s still great news and the App Store will become less cluttered.
I would not down vote you because of your opinion.
I would however take issue with you saying that iOS7 with be a “fiasco” simply because the cruft in the app store may be weeded out. As def4 points out, that will most likely be a good thing.
The adoption rate of devices that can run iOS7 might be high, but that figure conveniently excludes all devices that can’t run iOS7. So what is the percentage in total numbers of customers that can run iOS6 now versus that can run iOS7 when it comes out?
Losing the cruft is indeed good, but keep in mind that if your favorite app doesn’t get updated, it’s going to sting (or you’ll just “insta-delete” it, as a blog a few weeks back said).
What worries me is if the perception gets out there that lots of companies and indie developers have given up on iOS, with abandoned apps serving as obvious-by-their-appearance evidence of that.
I just want to know if they just have to redesign the icon or replace/update a lot of code for iOS 7?
It really depends.
* Apps that mostly use Apple’s stock UI components will have to update a lot of art, and check layouts and sizing for stuff that’s changed. Not terrible. Twitterrific is a pretty good example of adopting those kinds of changes early.
* Developers who created their own UI elements (to do things that UIKit doesn’t do) and tried to mimic Apple’s appearance will have a tough road to hoe, especially if they want to switch on the fly and be all gray-linen for iOS 6 and translucent for iOS 7.
* OTOH, games that just go straight into a full-screen OpenGL view have their own look-and-feel won’t really have to do anything. Running Angry Birds on iOS 7 will be barely different than on iOS 6.
We’re going to 7 ASAP, Dev underway, but wouldn’t dare drop support for 6. That’s just silly, for us.
I hope that doesn’t mean I have to buy all my apps again. Also, I’m going to be one of those who don’t update my iPhone right away, until a jailbreak becomes available, although I will update my iPad, and am getting my wife the 5S, so I’ll be rocking both 6 and 7.