The App Store Regularly Removes Outdated Apps

Developers complain that the App Store removes outdated apps, i.e. deals with applications that have not received updates for a long time. The authors of such products are given 30 days to update them, otherwise the application is simply excluded from the App Store.

Kabwe writes that he is literally sick of the letter he received, because his free game Motivoto, which has not been updated since March 2019, will now be removed from the app store.

But there is some good news: Porn applications found in Microsoft Store 😉

Another developer, Costa Eleferiou, who created the FlickType keyboard for Apple Watch, writes that Apple has already removed the visually impaired version of his app from the store because it hasn’t been updated in two years. At the same time, he notes that the once popular Pocket God application still remains in the App Store, although it has not been updated since 2015.

Developer Emilia Laser-Walker also says that Apple has taken “a few” of its apps (mostly old games) off the App Store. Similar complaints come from many other developers, and they note with regret that they simply did not have time to release updates.

On a dedicated App Store improvements page, the company states that it “implements an ongoing app evaluation process, removing apps that no longer work properly, don’t meet current guidelines, or are outdated.” Since the page doesn’t have a date of the publication, it’s not entirely clear when Apple last updated this text and when the new rules came out.

The Verge notes that Apple carried out such “cleansing” in the App Store back in 2016, but it is not clear whether Apple regularly arranges such checks or only recently began to comply with these rules so strictly. Also, Apple does not clearly define which apps are considered “outdated”: whether it’s due to the time that has passed since they were last updated, or because of compatibility with the latest version of iOS.