Re:How Apple Cheats
by danudey on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @10:07AM
(#7809944)
> You've got to support the API forever, and future design directions are constrained.
Actually, I think part of the reason for Apple's reluctance is that they don't do this; they'll gladly deprecate APIs and remove them in future versions, but that's about as bad because now you're breaking apps (which admittedly are unable or unwilling to update).
This is especially a problem in corporate environments with custom iPad apps; if the customer doesn't want to pay the developer to update for newer iOS versions, then they basically can't buy new devices once the API is removed, because their app won't work. This is why Microsoft keeps APIs around forever, and why businesses keep running XP until ten years has gone by and they start getting hammered with 0-days.
Actually, I think part of the reason for Apple's reluctance is that they don't do this; they'll gladly deprecate APIs and remove them in future versions, but that's about as bad because now you're breaking apps (which admittedly are unable or unwilling to update).
This is especially a problem in corporate environments with custom iPad apps; if the customer doesn't want to pay the developer to update for newer iOS versions, then they basically can't buy new devices once the API is removed, because their app won't work. This is why Microsoft keeps APIs around forever, and why businesses keep running XP until ten years has gone by and they start getting hammered with 0-days.