It looks like Apple has kept its word to end legacy support

Sep 19, 2017 16:51 GMT  ·  By

Apple is launching iOS 11 today, and it looks like they are finally killing the support for 32-bit apps on iPhone and iPads.

It’s been a long time coming, but Apple is finally moving on past the 32-bit platform. It’s only for iPhone and iPad, and it was planned for a couple of years already. You might think that developers had ample time to port their applications, but it’s more than likely people are still using older 32-bit apps.

The decision to only support 64-bit apps was an easy one because one of the side effects is that the OS become a little bit lighter. The libraries that are needed to run 32-bit apps are now gone, which also means that a number of apps won’t run anymore, even if they are already installed.

Gone from the store and no legacy support

The legacy support for older products ensures that they can run for a long time. This is why 32-bit applications run just fine in Windows 64-bit, for example. The decision was made by Apple all the way back in 2015 when the company started to deny updates for apps that didn’t have 64-bit support.

The only affected application are the ones that haven’t been updated in a couple of years, which says a lot. Even so, there are quite a few popular apps in use and people won’t be happy when they will try to run their favorite application after the upgrade to iOS 11 will be completed.

According to a bbc.co.uk report, some of the affected applications include a few from Disney, a few games, and a number of Penguin Books apps. These are more high profile, but it’s very likely some of the less-known apps are going to be affected too.

Users don’t really have any recourse, besides finding replacement apps until developers decide to port their work on 64-bit.