In many ways, being a mobile app developer requires you to service two different masters at the same time – both the end users who you built your app for in the first place AND the manufacturers of the devices they’ll be using them on. In Apple’s case, they’ve recently announced a fairly significant change to the iOS platform moving forward. Starting with iOS 11 in September of 2017, the operating system will be 64 bit only. If the current version of your mobile app only offers support for older, 32 bit version of iOS, this means that there are a number of hugely important things you’ll need to keep in mind.
64 Bit Only: The Immediate Ramifications
In the short-term, users will already have begun to receive notices that 32 bit iOS apps need to be updated by their developer in order to remain compatible once iOS 11 is officially released. The message that pops up on screen not only confirms that the current version of a particular app will no longer work in future versions of the operating system, but also that the onus is on the developer to make the change and improve its compatibility.
There have been reports that current version of iOS (including the upcoming 10.3, currently still in beta) actually switch to a 32 bit “emulation” mode when an older app is opened. What is unclear is whether or not an iPhone switches back to its “normal” operating mode when the app is closed, or if it stays in this 32 bit mode until the user restarts their device.
The Long-Term Effect
Exactly how big of an impact this will all have on mobile application development remains to be seen, as Apple is notoriously secretive about upcoming versions of the iPhone itself. According to current rumors, processors in future versions of iOS devices (which may include the upcoming 10th anniversary iPhone to be released in the fall of 2017) won’t include 32 bit legacy support at all – meaning that if you don’t update your app and your user updates his or her device, they won’t be able to install it at all.
This also has a potentially huge effect on users that don’t update their smartphones and tablets on a semi-regular basis. Though the iPhone has been around for a decade, 64 bit support first premiered with the iPhone 5s. It was only in February 2015 that Apple required all new apps to offer 64 bit support – the same requirement was not true for apps already in existence at that time.
This means that if your users have a device older than the iPhone 5, they’re not going to be able to update to iOS 11 at all. Reports are unclear about whether or not they’ll even be able to update to the upcoming iOS 10.3. This presents mobile app developers in particular with something of a conundrum – how do you keep up to date with Apple’s ongoing requirements while still offering legacy support to people with older phones?
The answer to that question, unfortunately, is one that will need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. One thing is clear – Apple is very serious about these upcoming changes. Apple has already begun to remove “problematic and abandoned apps” from the App Store in recent months – approximately 50,000 of them have reportedly disappeared since the initiative began. It’s easy to see a situation where if you don’t update your mobile app to include 64 bit support by iOS 11’s launch in September, it could be one of the 187,000+ apps that are predicted to be removed after that time.
