Don’t be ridiculous. They’re software products for sale on a store. If the developers consider them art and care deeply about that they can release the code and anyone can install the app on their device then.
I have an apps on there in the art context. I think with software as your medium, if you want your art to live on, you need to keep it updated. Doom is constantly being updated to run on new systems, and valve still updates old games (for example).
Bit rot is something you need to battle with in work production systems too. Even if you wrote something in assembly, you’d eventually have to update it.
It’s the nature of software. Am I misunderstanding what you think should be happening?
Apple could also make their platform backwards compatible.
Because there are many niche audiences which can't afford constant software updates and having an application that doesn't perfectly support a new device is better for them than not having a application at all.
I would not have a single solitary problem with what they're doing if they allowed side loading, but if they don't allow side loading, this shit isn't okay. I know there's a whack of unmaintained apps out there which are meant to help people with a disability, if somebody relies on such an app, fuck them I guess, they should use a new app that supports the newest screen sizes regardless of if that app exists or not.