That's been how it's been for years now. Every year. I'm sympathetic to the argument that that's not enough time, but if your company has a mobile app on iOS and you're not planning to do this work every summer in time for the September release then it's a pretty major failure of planning.

If you need to do months of work every summer to keep up with iOS updates you need to look at what you’re doing wrong, unless you’re simply adopting new features every time. Things should generally just work. Apple doesn’t usually break well-behaved apps (usually).

For sure, but you at least need to plan to maybe have work to do. Either to proactively support new features/devices or any necessary updates. If you're hitting September and your app is still broken, something has gone wrong.

You just need to plan to test your apps every Summer. And maybe extra time for implementing new platform features, like log-in with Apple and whatnot. But it’s still a yearly routine!

To be fair, iOS version increments usually aren’t rocket science if you don’t want to take advantage of all the new features right away.

Why the /s? Three months is a _very_ long time in software. This isn’t retooling physical metal for a new car model year; it’s minor software tweaks at best. Most developers don’t actually need to do anything.

> Three months is a _very_ long time in software

No, its not. For example, I use an open source app called fd:

https://github.com/sharkdp/fd

I have not updated it since 2020. Yeah, new versions are available, but the old one works fine, so no need to even upgrade. You shouldn't have to get every single version of software just because its available.

What exactly is the point of all these releases if you don't upgrade?

Do you think Apple just releases new versions of iOS with API changes to keep developers shipping new versions or something?

I don't understand this mentality that just because v1.6.3 is available you don't HAVE to upgrade from v1.2.1.

There's obviously new bug fixes and features available to you.

The only reason I would say not to upgrade is because your device doesn't support the new version and in that case you CANT upgrade.

Right, but since when does Apple (or any company) get to dicate what versions of software that I use? Granted in some cases, forced upgrades are a thing. But I am a human being with agency, I can make my own decisions on what to run on my own computer/devices.