Jeremy Horwitz, writing for 9to5mac:
What happens when an app — marketed as compatible with current iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches — is never updated for the latest version of iOS, and either stops working after an iOS upgrade, or never works at all on new devices? That’s the situation buyers of Square Enix’s $18 The World Ends with You: Solo Remix (and $20 iPad version) have found themselves in since iOS 8 was released. The game’s description claims that it “requires iOS 4.3 or later” and is compatible with devices that shipped with iOS 8, but it wasn’t actually iOS 8-compatible. Yesterday, Square Enix publicly flip-flopped on whether it would leave the game unplayable or fix it. Before changing its tune, the company told customers that they’d need to continue to keep using iOS 7 in order to play the game — an unrealistic alternative, though one that’s faced by users of numerous iOS apps that aren’t being updated by their developers.
Obsolescence is not a big deal for a 99 cent app, but a line exists, and that line is clearly crossed with an app priced at $20, or even $18.
A tough situation. You can’t force a developer to build an update. And it’s not quite fair to force a developer to refund money when the product they built actually runs on the OS for which it was built.
Should Apple refund a customer’s money when an app no longer runs on an updated version of iOS? That feels closer, but still, is it fair to penalize Apple for pushing the platform further along?
It’s a tough call. When you buy an app, you buy it for now. But, with Apple pushing out new versions of iOS annually, it does mean that you could buy an app that only works for a couple of months before the new iOS release. I think there should be some sort of refund; with apps at that price, it’s too much to just write off.
From a development standpoint, $20 for an app isn’t even enough to justify endless free updates. Often it justifies the initial app and that’s it. Consider the amount of time between design and development and the number of copies sold. I sold on of my apps for $8 for years. I’ve made a sum total of around $6000 on it in two years time, most made within the first month. That isn’t nearly enough to push continual free updates.
This is why Tapbots often releases new apps instead of updates when it comes to big updates. Tweetbot 3 was a brand new app to support iOS 8. They want to make this a full time job and to do so they must make money. So many developers do abandon old apps because the likelihood of those 10+ hours producing more than a few fresh purchases and justifying the $1000 ($100/hour) worth of work is slim to none.
Let’s be clear, no one’s asking for TWEWY to be updated to adopt some new framework, or add Extensions, or something.
The game crashes on launch. It still says “iOS 4.3 or later” in the App Store. That is a lie, and a game like this would not require a significant amount of engineer time to remedy its crash.
This isn’t an App Store issue…it is a software updating issue. Same could happen with a Mac app that a developer decides not to update for a new version of the Mac OS. While this is a game, the same logic holds true (maybe even more so) with productivity apps you depend on: Evaluate the developer as much as you evaluate the software if you’re concerned with obsolescence. If the listing in the App Store was an incorrect representation, then the developer should take the hit of the refund, the same way they should if the incorrect representation were on their own web site.
So someone could release an stupid app that’s tied closely to the OS version in some way, sell it for $100 a pop to himself and partners , then after getting the App Store payment wait for a new iOS came out in order to scam Apple for a refund…
That’s not a real option is it…
The PC and Mac world have dealt with this problem for the past 2 decades quite simply. If people spent serious money on an app and the developer doesn’t support it long enough then the developer is going to have a seriously hard time convincing anyone to buy whatever they do next.
I believe this is a situational call. First, Square Enix is not some independent developer who can’t afford to support older products. Second, the product itself was originally released in 2007, ported to iOS five years later, and ported to Android two years after that. This product has longevity. Square Enix should have been ready to support it beyond one year.
I’m glad someone is talking about this. I’m getting quite sick of all the “you should pay for your apps” talk from prominent devs, as I’ve paid for plenty of apps that have disappeared, been supplanted by a new version, or stopped working very shortly thereafter.
Square is the worst at abandoning their apps on the App Store. Forget about bugs breaking the game after an iOS update, they sometimes don’t even fix bugs that shouldn’t even be there to begin with, and if they do they are painfully slow to fix it. On top of that, many of their ports aren’t exactly top notch. I’ve only been willing to pay the $15-20 Square demands for ports of decades old games, on FFTactics. As much as I’d love Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana, Squares poor track record doesn’t convince me to spend that kind of money on games I already own on other systems.
If the app claims to be compatible with devices that only ran iOS 8, but is not compatible with iOS 8, they were just lying, not becoming obsolescent, and refunds sound good.
If it’s only text that said “iOS N or newer”, and now at N+M, it’s no longer compatible, it’s muhc more debatable. (Apple might, if the developer is moribund or won’t comment on an update, just change the description to note incompatibility.)
If the descriptions were kept accurate (ideally “tested up to iOS N”, not “iOS N or newer”, unless they’re really committed to keeping it compatible indefinitely, and updating rapidly), this would be far less of an issue.
Everything I can find on the Internet suggests that, the way a sane company would do it, Apple charges refunds to the developer, rather than just taking the hit itself.
Nothing new. My kids were crushed when Jelly Car 2 stopped working after an iOS update.
Seems like Apple could and should develop an automated system to run all publicly-available apps against the current version of iOS and flag any app that crashes at launch (or fails to launch in 20 seconds, thereby getting shut down by the watchdog). Flagged apps would have a specific period of time to either fix the app, pull it from the store, or have Apple pull it for them.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that Apple should have to refund folks but certainly if an app no longer works because the developer doesn’t keep up with it I think it’s fair to pull it from the store until they do. Leave it up only for re downloading with icloud restores etc