Shulou(Shulou.com)05/31 Report--

­for years, Eddie Boxman (Eddy Boxerman) has thought that his company's widely acclaimed iOS game Osmos will never need to be updated. He's not even sure it's feasible to develop a new version because the game uses weird multiplayer code and is no longer compatible with Apple's new development tools. But Boxman realized he had to try. With the release of iOS 11, Apple will require all applications to support 64-bit architecture, which made its debut on iPhone 5S, iPad Air and iPad Mini 2 at the end of 2013.

­applications running on Apple's old 32-bit architecture will no longer be able to run in iOS 11 and will not appear in App Store search results on devices running the new operating system. (it's not clear whether Apple will completely remove them from App Store.) By forcing 64-bit upgrades, Apple can ensure better performance on existing iOS applications and may free up future hardware resources by giving up 32-bit support for its processors.

­to keep Osmos from disappearing from App Store, Boxman spent three months updating his code and rewriting the game's multiplayer system to make the game support iOS 11. Although the number of Osmos downloads today is not the same as when Apple's iPad Game of the year was won in 2010. But Boxman still believes that his work will pay off and continue to generate sustained and steady sales for Osmos in the years to come.

­he said: "from a gambling point of view, this is reasonable and worthwhile. I don't want to see this game disappear from the iOS platform."

However, not all iOS developers see this view in this way. Some analysts say that the vast majority of applications are now ready for iOS 11, but some developers always believe that their code is not worth updating, especially after these outdated elements have been accumulated over the years. As Apple prepares for the future of the iOS, some once popular games and apps will also be abandoned.

­the general situation

Randy Nelson, director of mobile watch at SensorTower, an application analytics company, says that as the official release of iOS 11 approaches, many app developers are becoming more serious about upgrading their software. He estimates that 64-bit updates have increased by 228% over the previous six months, and the growth rate peaked in June when Apple confirmed that it would stop supporting 32-bit apps.

­however, based on the data of the application analysis company appFigures, there may still be a lot of software in the app Store directory that does not support the new iOS 11 system. Apple has supported 64-bit iOS software since May 2012, and more than 45000 apps have not been upgraded since then. Since Apple began requiring all new apps and app updates to include 64-bit support in June 2015, there are still 425000 apps that have not yet been updated. In other words, there are still 470000 applications that may not support iOS 11. Ariel Michaeli, founder and CEO of AppFigures, said: "based on the upgrade model, this number may eventually be between 20 and 250000."

­from the perspective of the data alone, it is difficult to notice which noteworthy applications will be abandoned. Michaeli said that according to his observation, about 30 per cent of the 470000 apps were games, of which the most popular were either replaced by newer versions or simply imitated. Of the 75 outdated App with at least 100000 user ratings, only one is more attractive: Epic Games's first version of Infinity Blade.

­many small losses

­although these statistics are not too bad on the whole, they do mask the fact that a lot of software is still worth saving. For example, on my third-generation iPad alone, I can find a lot of excellent apps that are still incompatible with iOS 11. These apps include neglected games produced by large studios, such as Id Software's "Doom", its iOS version "Rage", and casual games such as Vectorpark's "Levers". Of course, the problem is not just for game applications, but also for music creation tools such as iSequence HD and Tachyon.

­none of these developers responded to comments and suggestions on upgrading applications, but it is not difficult to understand why these application developers are reluctant to upgrade their application code. For independent developers, if an application doesn't sell well, it's not worth weeks or even months to upgrade their code, even for large companies with stable sales, it's hard to allocate resources from other projects.

­under the circumstances, some people want Apple to do more than just set deadlines. Adam Ghahramani, an independent product and marketing producer, recently wrote on VentureBeat that Apple should create some incentives to encourage traditional app upgrades (such as App Store ad points), or at least find a way to preserve historic outdated apps.

­"otherwise, making nearly 200000 digital products disappear will not only be a tragedy for many Apple customers and developers, but will also create a cultural black hole for future generations," Ghahramani wrote.

­update analysis

­in theory, upgrading an application to 64-bit is not a tedious task. Mark Price, who teaches student Mark Price at Udemy, an online learning site, says Apple's Xcode software makes the transition easier in many cases. Price did some experiments on this. He tried to convert several open source applications from the code hosting site GitHub and found that he did not encounter any problems.

­"in some cases, some libraries use outdated technologies, so you have to discard them because of compilation errors. But if it uses the basic framework of iOS, then in most cases it works well."

­this is at least true for Adam Saltzman (Adam Saltsman), the founder of the iOS game Canabalt. In his initial email to me, Salzman was actually less confident about solving code compatibility issues and dealing with App Store comments. But a week later, everything went better than expected. A year ago, Salzman also developed the Apple TV version of Roof Race, and he inadvertently solved most of the problems he would encounter on iOS 11.

Of course, things are not always going well. Boxman said he didn't plan to spend more than three months upgrading Osmos's 64-bit support, but then he encountered a lot of unexpected new obstacles, especially when fixing multiplayer code. " These obstacles keep growing, and you think you're almost done, but not, at least during that time, I did think a lot of times: OK, I should give up the multiplayer system altogether. "

­even after developing a new multiplayer game system, Boxman spent more than a month adapting other code to iOS 11. Since the last update of Osmos in 2013, Apple has abandoned many important parts of its GameCenter network, and Boxman has had to redesign its social elements. Moving to 64-bit will take several weeks to test for vulnerabilities related to memory allocation.

­"how long it takes you to diagnose a problem depends on how familiar you are with these issues and how familiar you are with your code," says Boxman.

­apart from the underlying factors of profitability, Boxman does not regret how much time he has invested in the update. He enjoys "thank you" comments from players because single-player users can find competitors in the process of the game, and he believes that adding multi-player elements to old games that have been released for many years will bring the game back to life to a certain extent.

­but will he upgrade if the game doesn't sell well? Bergsmann is not sure.

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­Apple online Store (China)

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