Slashdot Mirror
Apple Pushes Developers To iOS 7
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Chuong Nguyen reports that Apple is forcing developers to adopt iOS 7's visual UI for their apps, and has advised iOS developers that all apps submitted after February 1, 2014 must be optimized for iOS 7 and built using Xcode 5 ... 'It's likely that Apple is more anxious than ever for developers to update their apps to fit in visually and mechanically with iOS 7, as it's the largest change in the history of Apple's mobile software,' says Matthew Panzarino. 'iOS 7 introduced a much more complex physical language while stripping out many of the visual cues that developers had relied on to instruct users. For better or worse, this has created a new aesthetic that many un-updated apps did not reflect.' Most app developers have been building apps optimized towards iOS 7 since Apple's World Wide Developer Conference in June 2013. Apple has been on a push over the past couple of years to encourage developers to support the latest editions of its OS faster than ever. To do this, it's made a habit of pointing out the adoption rates of new versions of iOS, which are extremely high. Nearly every event mentions iOS 7 adoption, which now tops 76% of all iOS users, and Apple publishes current statistics. In order to optimize apps for the new operating system, they must be built with the latest version of Xcode 5 which includes 64-bit support and access to new features like backgrounding APIs."
Compliance is Exciting and Mandatory! Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Like what? I don't have an iOS device, so I'm not really sure what they're talking about.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
iOS7 would have gotten Jony FIRED if Jobs were still alive. Give the man a gong, and "Sir" Ives fucks everything to hell.
The man was a great PHYSICAL designer of cases and objects. Not allowed near software UXD in Steve's lifetime. Now you know why.
Nothing works well, any longer - shadows and reflections or not. The laundry list of how screwed the music app deserved a post of its own.
Red chevrons? REALLY? Lotus Notes, Borland SideKick and ccMail.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Fuck Apple. I bit the bullet on smartphones with a 4S. I was very pleased with it. The new OS is about as appetizing as being smacked about the face with a rotting donkey dick. It's slow, clunky, and changes everything for the sake of change. It's terrible.
"So if you don't like it, don't buy it," says the fanboi.
Hey, I bought what I did like! Apple's changing it on me. If I like a brand of shoes there's always the chance they'll change the line when I need a new pair. Thems the breaks in life. But not even Nike is going to go to my house and fuck up a pair I already own. Apple will. I'm not updating this phone, period. If none of the new apps will work with it, I'm done buying apps.
Sadly, I don't like Android much either. Windows Mobile can choke on my fuck. IOS5 was the last really good mobile OS. If there's ever another good one, I don't think it's coming from Apple.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Most jailbreaks turn off autonotification/checking for updates. I don't see why a JB wouldn't just turn off the autoupdate feature.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I hate how this is breaking support for iOS 5.1.1 only devices like the iPad 1. My mother-in-law is not technically inclined, but uses an iPad1 for banking and watching TV shows. Both apps have broken support for iOS5 in favor of iOS7. This makes a device she paid good money for only a couple years ago a paperweight. My Motorola Xoom I bought at roughly the same time is going strong and running a very current version of Android. This kind of thing is just a normal function of technology every 4-5 years+, but not 2 or less. Unfortunately for Apple her next device will be an Android. Cheaper and obsolescence proof for much longer.
It's supposed to say "Apple pushes developers to Android" By the way, it's around 6:1 now for android to apple phone counts.
Yes, that could be since there are so many low end android devices worldwide.
However it seems that in the US (copied this from Macrumors):
According to data from research firm Kantar Worldpanel posted earlier this month, the iPhone's market share in the U.S. hit 52.8% in October following the launch of the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. In the previous year, Apple's market share was at 53.3% following the launch of the iPhone 5, and was at 36% and 25% in the two years prior with the launch of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4, respectively.
Over here in Hong Kong where I currently live I see more people with Android than with iphone but the ratio is rather 1.5 : 1. From my discussions with friends and colleagues, I think that a number of them may switch back once Apple offers a bigger phone (most people outside Slashdot still give the brand quite some goodwill).
Also in statistics once again it seems that the iphones are used more for internet activities than the bigger number of android phones - leading me to suspect that the cheaper android devices are first and foremost used as a pure phone with some games etc thrown in.
... does this mean there is no way to turn off "automatic updates" in an Idevice ...
A user of an iOS device does not have to upgrade. The check for an update is automatic, the installation is not.
Its more of an issue for developers. The development tools sometimes make it difficult to support older versions of iOS. At the moment iOS 6 is well supported so there really is not much of a problem to have your app target both iOS 6 and 7.
Devices that are compatible and are switched on to WiFi will automatically download the latest iOS build and install it without requiring user intervention
This is untrue. My 4s is at iOS 6.1.3. It has an indicator that iOS 7 is available as a download, but hasn't auto-downloaded it, or installed it. I also need to free up 4 gigs on my 16 gig iPhone to install it, which I'm too lazy to do these days.
The problem is, however, that an increasing number of applications, will not work on previous IOS versions... even if there is nothing particular about the newer IOS version that the application actually requres. The only way to prevent this is to target the application for the oldest IOS version you want to support at build time. But doing so would not optimize the app for more recent IOS versions.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Normal development cycle. What is the story here? That iOS 7 is successful?
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
I've been a programmer for decades and I write my share of mobile apps. I write in many languages and for many platforms so I'm not married to any particular target system. I am in the middle of a project and have some beta testers running an iOS app with OTA updates using a OTA provisioning profile which is a fancy way of saying users can update apps over the air without needing to use the app store. My provision profile, a digital signature like thing, expired in November and the users needed a new version of the app to keep testing. I opened up my MacBook and it informed me that XCode 5 was available and "would I like to update it?" Sure, why not? Well, I can tell you why not. XCode 5 made software written in previous version not work! Significant rewrites needed to be done in order to do any changes and there was no option to compile for previous version. In short, an errant software update created two weeks work. Nowhere in there notice to update did it say clicking YES will cost you $10,000. This is screwed up! Backward compatibility should be available for development. If they want to no longer accept iOS6 apps into the store, that is fine. I should be able to compile old code without error by selecting the correct target device. This sort of thing actually makes their previous devices worthless because if they cannot run iOS7 then no new software can be written for them again. It is a such a waste. I am pissed at these guys.
I am able to take a previous compiled binary and sign it with a new profile so that the users are still able to work, but now even the most minor change requires a rewrite. These guys seem to forget who made them rich. It was devs making awesome software which made people buy their products in huge numbers. iTunes integration will only sell so many phones.
No, it's not true. I can boot up my computer that runs Windows XP, or my other computer that runs NetBSD 4.0, and it doesn't automatically and forcibly upgrade the OS to a version that doesn't run well on the old hardware.
It's called a forced upgrade to drive hardware sales, you shill.
Yes, I know I'm posting this one on apple.slashdot.org so it's you apple freaks' turf and I'm being rude.
That's like arguing that "See! Millions eat at McDonald's that it *must* be gourmet food!"
Popularity != Quality.
iOS is a total clusterfuck of bad UI/UX design principles. Gee, let's flush everything we know about making GOOD UI right down the toilet and use a retarded flat-shading to conflate the UI S/N.
Apple *now* believes anti-skeuomorphism is the One True Way; the point of UI rules is to know when to use them AND when to break them.
Any ideology taken to an extreme is bad in the long run.
Pre-iOS7 had a very nice balance of 3D shading, photorealism, and skeuomorphism, which TOGETHER all helped the UI S/N. iOS7 tells me the UI designers don't understand the first thing about UI S/N.
Grow up. Millions of happy iOS customers proved you wrong.
No. Many iOS users thought that iOS 7 was a step forward with respect to functionality and a step backward with respect to visual appearance. Skeumorphism may have been overdone but iOS 7 went too far in the opposite direction, too flat, gets rid of borders that made sense (buttons), icons that make no sense and look like a placeholder that never got replaced (game center), etc.
Its a strange day when people coming from the Linux world are doing a better job at UI design than Apple.
Well Windows 8.1 seems snappier than Windows 7 was. Maybe the work they did in trying to shoehorn it onto a tablet actually was useful for PC users in some way.
Its a strange day when people coming from the Linux world are doing a better job at UI design than Apple.
My god, you've got that one right.
Next up. Hell freezes over. Microsoft goes open source.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's awful. Things that function as multi-state buttons now look like hyperlinks. Low-contrast shading "highlights" state changes. Other buttons, formerly intuitive and multi-state, now summon fly-up menus from the bottom of the screen (like the loop one/all button in Music app).
"WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO RUIN MY COMPANY?"
-- Steve Jobs, c. 2003
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Try hitting "forward" or "reverse" to the next/previous track, without looking. With out accidentally changing volume, or switching "shuffle".
Right.
Try doing WHILE looking! Still the deuce to do!
This was perfectly positioned, and responded to the right touch, prior to 7 - even with the 6.x face lift.
TOTAL DISASTER. I now use a 3rd party player, after 3 months of bitch-fight with Ives' abortion.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Summary is an over simplification based reading T.F.Email from Apple. Nothing that Apple is doing at this time will prevent developers from targeting older devices than they previously have been able to target. I *think* the current oldest supportable iOS given their requirements is iOS 5, but I haven’t verified that with the latest Xcode build.
All apps published after the cut-off date must be built with the latest version of Xcode and must have imagery & design that will support iOS 7 devices’ look & feel. They must use iOS 7 as the Base SDK, but they are not required to use iOS 7 as the Minimum Deployment Target. The minimum target supported by latest Xcode is the one thing I’m uncertain of right now, but I’m pretty sure it’s iOS 5.something.
The two settings on your project (Base SDK and Min. Deployment Target (MDT)) control the newest and oldest features you have access to, respectively. An app with a newer Base SDK will still run on an older device (down to MDT). Any features added to an iOS release that’s newer that the MDT will be weak linked. The developer can check at runtime whether particular functionality is available. Unavailable classes will return nil when you try to access them (which you can ignore or check for depending on your needs), and newer methods will be unavailable on old devices (so check with respondsToSelector: or similar before calling). Additionally, when running on an older device, you keep the old device look & feel. You don’t suddenly start looking like iOS 7 on an older device.
As for what developers must do to comply with the new requirements:
1) Make sure all artwork, screen layouts, etc. are available in the higher resolution / size needed by the larger iPhone 5+ screens & Retina iPads.
2) If changing the MDT, update any code referencing methods/classes that were deprecated in between whatever the previous MDT was and the new one. Any methods/classes deprecated between the new MDT and the Base SDK version can stay unchanged,since in many cases, the newer method/classes wouldn’t be available at runtime on the older devices.
Apple has definitely cut off older devices in the past. It’s currently Very Difficult to target 3GS or earlier devices as the current Xcode doesn’t generate ARMv6 code any more. It’s still possible to make that work if you’re very dedicated by building an ARMv6 binary with an older Xcode, ARMv7(s) with the latest Xcode, and manually merging the binaries with the `lipo` command. Anecdotal evidence suggests Apple will still approve such binaries, though I’ve not personally tried to submit one.
I was an iPad early adopter. It won't upgrade beyond iOS 5.x. I'm not upset about that. I understand that newer versions of an OS have more advanced hardware requirements.
My problem is the issues it causes with the walled garden of apps:
All apps are now going to require iOS7 to be installed. If I have iOS5.x I can't upgrade. This isn't the problem.
The problem is, if my iPad needs to get wiped for whatever reason, I cannot reinstall older versions of the apps from the Apple Store, since they will not allow download of old versions of apps, even if the newer version is not compatible with my hardware.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Yup. My old iPhone 4, which was running perfectly fine with iOS 6 just crawls now. Safari is almost unusable. Other than email, about the most Internet I centric thing I use it for now is tethering to my Nexus 7. When my iPhone finally kicks it, I'm going with an Android phone, probably a Nexus 5. Then I don't need the evil that is called iTunes to copy to the phone, can access the file system and don't have to deal with Apple's ludicrous restrictions.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The problem is, if my iPad needs to get wiped for whatever reason, I cannot reinstall older versions of the apps from the Apple Store, since they will not allow download of old versions of apps, even if the newer version is not compatible with my hardware.
Apple recently changed this policy if NoMaster's comment is to be believed.
I'm not willing to risk it. Even if it were 1000 times faster, I still wouldn't because by doing so it economically rewards Microsoft for a horrible horrible UI design. Vote with yer wallet is the saying around these parts.
Agree.
I didn't realize how much I hated the IOS7 user interface until I accidentally used an app that launched with the IOS6 controls. Oh my god! I could read them. I could see what each item in the scroll bar said. I could identify the differences between states. I could see what the controls were telling me to do.
Then I have to go back to IOS7...