Really sucks to lose 32bit support for legacy apps that used to work, especially when it might be a companion app for hardware/equipment that cost much more than the iPhone X (like your car).

I have some 32 bit apps that already don't work with newer versions of iOS.

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 abstract; when Everyday Looper goes, iOS will lose about half its value to me.

(See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzQLRPwZjIo for usage example).

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 their iOS devices because they want to run an abandoned 32 bit app?

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.

That said, to your point I'm sure most people who have been on iOS for a while have that one app that seems to be abandoned that they love, myself included. I'm glad 32b is going away as it really does clean up the App Store and gains some efficiency, but I'm annoyed the developer has given up on the app I like.

Don't they, though? I've seen a few people assert that, but no hard facts yet.

> Why should Apple waste time, resources, and space on the device to support 32 bit code?

Because users paid good money for 32b applications and phones which could run them at the time, and this is going to hold back users updating on iOS.

Rosetta was bundled with OSX for 4 years. That's for PPC mac software running on hardware which literally could not run it natively.

> my 68K Mac software

The Mac 68k emulator was only deprecated with the Intel transition, 68K mac software remained supported for about a decade.

> How far back should Apple go supporting older platforms?

Supporting software which runs natively on the hardware doesn't seem exactly reaching.

Apple was able to reduce the size of iOS by not having 32 bit support libraries in memory. Since iOS doesn't have paging, that saved memory benefits 64 bit apps.

Which is not my issue, have you considered reading my comments? Here, let me make it easy for you:

> the problem is that you can't play phone games from 2009 on your 2013~2016 iPhone which had been able to run them right until you updated iOS.

> Apple was able to reduce the size of iOS by not having 32 bit support libraries in memory.

Is that why capacity available went down 730MB on a 7?

> Since iOS doesn't have paging, that saved memory benefits 64 bit apps.

You could already save that memory by not using 32b software. Don't use the software, the libraries don't get loaded. Furthermore given iOS will kill background applications to reclaim memory, the "saved memory" is just about non-existant.

There is always a performance hit going from 32 bit to 64 bit processes. There is a hit to performance when running both 64 bit and 32 bit processes on Windows. Why take the hit to support some old 32 bit apps that probably haven't been updated to take advantage of even the 4" inch phones let alone the larger phones? Why take on the support and security concerns for a few old apps - many of which already don't work on iOS 10?

I guess knowing my RAM is unused helps me feel better while I'm wondering which files I've lost to the forever locked away 32bit app containers.

The developers of the apps clearly don’t think of them as essential.

I was going to play it for a little while before I updated to iOS 11. To my surprise, Epic decided to update it for the first time in 5 years and port it to 64 bit code. It couldn't be because it was still making much money, but I did appreciate it.

EDIT:

It was also updated to support the iPad Pro.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/infinity-blade/id387428400?m...

Or, like the vast, vast majority of games, the developer was contracted for the initial development and the publisher who owns the right to the IP and specific software has no financial incentives to pay for additional work to update it and thus won't, regardless of the developer's wishes or whims let alone the users's

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.

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.

How far back should Apple go with backwards compatibility?

Do you also think that modern Macs should support 65C02 from the Apple II days? 68K Mac programs? PPC Mac programs?

Apple dropped 32 bit processor support in 2011. They will probably drop 32 app support in the next two years.