Today, Apple officially made the iOS 11 mobile operating system available to download. If you’re planning to update your iPad or iPhone, there’s something you need to be aware of: all of your older 32-bit apps are going to stop working.
I love the time when new operating systems and hardware are released. As well as getting the tech equivalent of that new car smell, it’s a chance to clean out devices and get rid of all the crappy apps (do you really need 17 different fart apps?) you’ve accumulated. With iOS 11, there’s also a another reason to clear the decks; a bunch of old apps are being put out to pasture.
iOS 11 is dropping support for any older 32-bit apps. Developers have known this change is coming for some time but I imagine a lot of users are simply unaware that, potentially, lots of apps they use will stop working if they upgrade to iOS 11.
If you go to Settings |General | About | Applications you’ll see a list of apps that won’t work with iOS 11. In my case, there are two – FoxSorts Pulse, which I use for tracking my kids’ sports team fixtures and the accomodation booking app, NeedItNow.
In some cases, the apps have been abandoned. But others, such as Fox Sports Pulse, have been replaced by new apps. For example, Fox Sports Pulse has been replaced by Game Day.
For business users, it’s possible that older apps you rely on will stop working. That’s where your MDM solution will come in handy. You can stop the update to iOS 11 if you’ve set the right controls on the devices you manage.
It’s also a great chance to look through your apps and ditch the ones you longer use. There’s also an option in iOS to automatically get rid of unused apps without losing the data. Go to Settings | iTunes and App Store and enable the “Offload Unused Apps” setting.
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