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iOS 11 reviewed

arstechnica.com

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Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#281

Post by valuearb »

0x0 wrote: post #268
valuearb wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been developing iOS apps for 8 years, it’s preetty easy. If you wrote code that depended upon sizes of fundamental types, you didn’t write good code. if you weren’t using resources to lay out UI, you didn’t think ahead. 2x and 3x graphics can be created from your originals with OSX preview. It’s far easier to rewrite old apps today than ever. The tools are far better. The APIs are far better. Async…

I didn’t say it was impossible, I was just argung that updating legacy apps is a lot more work than clicking a recompile button and uploading the result. The loser here is the end-user, who can’t access their files inside legacy apps or control devices that depend on legacy apps or even just enjoy a paid-for game. And that’s all on Apple, who surely could have offered 32bit support for several more years, even if the…

No the winner is the user who doesn't have to host hundreds of megabytes of 32 bit libraries in memory on their device.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#282

Post by odammit »

After using iOS11 for a few hours I have to say my favorite new feature is the gigantic “iMessages” header.

The “Contacts” one is pretty good too but the “iMessages” one seems much faster and it consumes far less RAM in some benchmarks I ran.

It’s a real disappointment that they didn’t add a banner in Safari. I generally find myself using Safari and wonder “am I using safari?” I end up having to close my apps and reopen safari to double check.

Update: I am currently using Safari. My heart was racing for a second totally didn’t know what app I was using.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#283

Post by 0x0 »

valuearb wrote: post #281
0x0 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t say it was impossible, I was just argung that updating legacy apps is a lot more work than clicking a recompile button and uploading the result. The loser here is the end-user, who can’t access their files inside legacy apps or control devices that depend on legacy apps or even just enjoy a paid-for game. And that’s all on Apple, who surely could have offered 32bit support for several more years, even if the…

No the winner is the user who doesn't have to host hundreds of megabytes of 32 bit libraries in memory on their device.

That could easily be solved by offering 32bit support as an optional download, just like how 32bit windows10 prompts to install the 16bit ntvdm support libraries on first use. Or just like how iOS itself mounts a developer disk image provided on-demand by xcode during the first debug session, adding more items to the general ios settings menu in the process

A few hundred megabytes is certainly a small price to pay for users who need those legacy apps to unlock files/documents stored inside or the features the app might to provide to interface with legacy IoT devices or even a car.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#284

Post by 0x0 »

scarface74 wrote: post #274
romwell wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize that "legacy apps" are much more important to people who use them than the hardware that it runs on? Apple is a hardware company, and its need reason to push it. But what I do with hardware is run applications , and the applications matter more to me than the shiny (or not) box they run on, insofar as the box has the hardware to provide the UX that makes the software usable. I am not talking in abstrac…

Do you realize that "legacy apps" are much more important to people who use them than the hardware that it runs on Seeing that Apple is the most valuable company in the world and they have a long history of abandoning legacy software (Apple //e, 68K, PPC, and soon 32 bit x86) and moving customers with them, that statement doesn't jibe with the reality on the ground. What are the chances that people won't upgrade thei…

All the other transitions could be handled by virtualization and emulation, and the software and the corresponding data files could be copied between file systems and drives, so if you have built a workflow around a legacy app, you could still access it on new hardware.

But iOS being such a locked down and closed platform means there is currently no way to preserve legacy apps or the data stored within installations. This is why dropping 32bit legacy app support is such a big deal.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#285

Post by 0x0 »

MBCook wrote: post #219
bartread wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand I agree with you: on the other I quite like the fact that relatively large bodies of code I wrote 12 years ago still run unmodified (albeit in Windows desktop apps that have received updates and enhancements since then). Due to these updates I don't know that they would still run on Windows XP but it's nice that the code hasn't needed to change.

Much of the code needs nothing more than a recompile. It’s just no one is doing that. To run 32 bit stuff you need copies of all the system libraries. You lose a lot of RAM to that. You have to continue to ensure they don’t have bugs. All for apps that are abandoned. I totally understand what apple is doing. I bet you a ton of those apps were never updated for iPhone 6 screen shizes either.

You would only lose the RAM and the disk space if the 32bit support is actually needed and installed. What’s better - having unused RAM and your app refusing to launch, or using RAM to run your important legacy app?

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#286

Post by scarface74 »

masklinn wrote: post #4

> Practically speaking, do I need to be able to play phone games from 2009 on my 2017 iPhone? Not really. The problem is not that you can't play phone games from 2009 on your 2017 iPhone, tying 32b deprecation to a hardware revision would actually have been nice (regardless of the hardware still being able to run in 32b mode). But that's not what's happening, the problem is that you can't play phone games from 2009 o…

"Free space" which they could already have gained back by removing the applications in the first place.

It's not the free storage space that is a big deal, it's the freed memory from not having to keep 32 bit and 64 bit dll's in memory.

* iPhone which had been able to run them right until you updated iOS.*

Every OS update whether they had deprecated 32bit apps or not breaks abandoned apps. Apple also removed support from the Mac years ago for PPC apps that could run on x86 apps up to 10.6.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#287

Post by scarface74 »

masklinn wrote: post #180
X-Istence wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rosetta was also removed after two or three releases. 32 bit support for applications in iOS was also supported for a couple of releases and is now gone. How is that not similar? I can't still run Rosetta to this date...

> Rosetta was also removed after two or three releases. 4 years. > How is that not similar? I can't still run Rosetta to this date... iOS 11 removed 32b support to hardware which supports it, Rosetta added PPC support to hardware which did not. Something similar to Rosetta would be emulating Aarch32 after having removed hardware support for it, not removing software support for Aarch32 despite the hardware implementi…

4 years

Apple's cadence of releasing Mac OS upgrades was a lot slower back then. x86 Macs were introduced with 10.4. Two releases later (10.7) they dropped support for PPC apps and 32 bit Macs.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#288

Post by [deleted] »

CJefferson wrote: post #88
ohfouroneone wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that games from 2009 don't run, only games that haven't been updated since 2009 don't run. All a developer needs to do is recompile and push an update.

I made a game in 2009, it was quite popular, got a bunch of positive reviews, I gave it away for free. I had to keep giving Apple £100/year just to let people keep downloading the game for free. At some point I tried recompiling it for a newer iOS, and I get hundreds of message about depricated APIs that I had to change to get it accepted by Apple. Instead I let it drop. I can't even put a copy online for people to d…

[deleted]

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#289

Post by scarface74 »

amelius wrote: post #85
masklinn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Devil's advocate: you don't have to install iOS 11 on your four-year-old iPhone. That is in fact my plan, but is nonetheless frustrating.

It only takes one "This app requires iOS11 to run" and there you go.

There are very few apps that require the latest OS to run unless they are 64 bit only. Even then, if there is an older version on the app store that was supported by your OS, you will be given the option to download an older version most of the time.

I can still download older versions of apps on my first gen iPad that hasn't been supported by iOS since 9/2012.

Re: iOS 11 reviewed

#290

Post by scarface74 »

js2 wrote: post #51
mikeash wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but that will only last some days or weeks.

The iPhone 5C won't update past iOS 10 so Apple will keep the signed version of that around and you can find 5C's for cheap. I mean if you really want to keep using 2009 apps. (I am not claiming that this is at all a reasonable work-around, just that there is a work-around.)

You can still download iOS 5 for the original iPad and restore it.

The newest version of iTunes still supports the first generation iPod as far as I know. I know it still supports the first generation iPod Touch.

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