Apple appears to have embarked on a new round of removing apps from its App Store, specifically those that have been left untouched by developers for a long period of time.
In a message sent to affected developers, Apple said that the app has not been updated in a long time and will be removed from sale in 30 days. Users who have already downloaded the app don't need to take any action.
If no update is submitted within 30 days, the app will be removed from sale.
It is not clear what Apple considers a significant amount of time.
The move has upset many developers who don't have time to update their work.
It's hard to take time away from current projects to update old ones, just to keep them alive on the store, according to developer BobbyW.
Robert Kabwe, the developer of Protopop Games, received a warning from Apple.
I'm sitting here on a Friday night, working myself to the bone after my day job, trying to keep up with Apple, Google, Unity, Xcode, and MacOS changes that I have to keep up with.
Simon Barker said he received an email saying the same about one of his apps. After five years, it doesn't need a v2 and Apple decides it's time to go due to swift version changes. I don't have time to change anything.
In order to keep its store full of recently updated software, Apple has been known to purge neglected apps. It warned developers in 2016 that if they didn't update their app, it would be removed from the store. In the first two months, the company removed nearly 50,000 apps.
It's not clear if the current purge is part of a long-running campaign or if Apple has recently started to increase its efforts on this front. The company hopes that its message will prompt developers to update their apps so that they can remain in the store.
We will update this article when we hear back from Apple about the apparent purge of neglected apps from the App Store.
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