Itching to stuff iOS 11 on your iPhone? You may want to hold off for a bit Apple's latest iOS version is out today – iOS 11 – but before you rush into updating, you'll want to check that it doesn't destroy any of your favorite apps. This version will insist on running only 64-bit apps and will kill support for 32-bit apps. That means several things: for one, if you have anything earlier than an …
"if you have anything earlier than an iPhone 5S in your pocket, you will not get the update at all (and your phone is going to slowly die)"
In other words, a 2012 iPhone 5 is in the same support position as a 2016 Motorola G4, or a pre-2015 Nexus.
"Oh, but Android is sooooo much cheeeeeaper..."
Whilst checking though what apps are going to potentially stop working I noted that all my 2K games (CivRev, Pirates, Ace Patrol, AP: Pacific Skies) are in the list. Also annoyingly I found that EA dropped Flight Control some time back.
I guess as they've both already got my money, they don't care...
>Its not exactly been a secret, especially given new 32 bit apps haven't been accepted for some time....
You've not been able to update an existing app since January 2015 without including a 64-bit binary either. If dev hasn't touched in in that long you can safely assume it's abandoned....
but maybe only because no iPhone users had ever got used to any level of freedom. My upgrade plans all but evaporated yesterday night when Apple decided to show middle finger to its users in iTunes 12.7. I can accept buggy software but removing "transfer purchases" was one bridge too far. The only option that let me move mp3 files out of the "walled garden" of the iPhone (podcasts, no illicit activity here) gone without much of warning. FTS. Some time later I was back to iTunes 12.6.2 and my phone has tvos profile installed to keep me from upgrade nags and protect the limited storage space (no updates available as of last check few minutes ago). I plan to keep this status quo as long as possible, especially that none of updates are of particular value to me (including the nanny state mode when carplay is active).
"Apple always screws up the first iteration" - never use a .0 release of anything is a common mantra in computing, that's not limited to Apple. Of course the new code is going to have bugs and the .1 release will fix most of them (and introduce some new ones, no doubt...). In general, wait a couple of days for the early adopters to find the issues, figure out what they are and figure out if the new features are worth the hassle of the new issues.
This post has been deleted by its author
I don't understand this comment in the article. My phone uses a PIN to unlock rather than a fingerprint. I have an iPhone 7 on iOS 10.3.3. I have *never* used a fingerprint. OK, my first iPhone was a 4,(1) but I went from that to a 5S and from that to a 7, and never turned on fingerprints, and so I use a PIN to unlock.
(1) This may be why, of course, since I've managed to migrate the settings every time I upgraded EITHER the phone OR the OS.
And I checked my list of not-64-bit apps. Nothing I'll miss. I'd say that pretty much all of them were last launched a couple of years ago, if not longer. That sort of "I won't miss it". So when the phone decides to let me know about the OS upgrade, I'll pick a time to do it, but not until then.
There's a new feature where-by if it is set up to use a fingerprint or facial scan, you can force a PIN by tapping 5 times. Hopefully the police will politely wait for you to get your phone out and do that.
PIN-only is preferred by some because it is a private code (mostly!). The police aren't waiting for PINs - they are waiting for a fingerprint or a face they can use. If they can obtain your PIN by legal means, they can definitely obtain your fingerprint or face.
If the means to fool the facial recognition or fingerprint recognition is established, then you cannot keep your face and fingerprints secret. An issue for US border entry is whether you can be forced to put your finger on the device (or face in front) for a border search; you cannot be directly coerced to reveal a PIN.
Top travel tip: Depending on your jurisdiction and level of co-operation, you may need to reset your facial recognition after the police interviews.
PIN-only is preferred by some because it is a private code (mostly!).
Fun factoid. There's a 1 in 50,000 chance that a random person's fingerprint will unlock an iPhone with Touch ID; the slop factor for face ID is supposedly 1 in 1,000,000 (source). I don't know what the reliability stats are for Android fingerprint unlock, but I imagine it's not much different since they all work by scanning partial prints.
There are numerous documented exploits where fingerprint unlock can be fooled by manipulating a lifted print, or even from a photo of a hand. Lest you get comfy about the 3D scanning of Face ID, there are apps that can generate a 3D face mask from a 2D photo.
Point is, the current generation of "biometric security" on mobile devices is a convenience feature -- somewhere between a 4-digit PIN and pattern unlock. A 6-digit PIN or a password are far more secure.
Tried that through the app store, but they've removed the 32-bit apps and thus the ability to contact the developer.
Some of the old timers around here tell whispered tales of something called a "search engine..." It's some kind of magical machine in the clouds: you type in something like the name of a product, and it searches all the world's knowledge for you.
Personally, I think it's just a legend.
It would appear that long-suffering users of O365 and Outlook.com will also be unable to send emails using the default Mail app
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4043473/you-can-t-send-or-reply-from-outlook-com-office-365-or-exchange-2016-i
Does anyone testing anything anymore? (obviously not it would appear!)
I've been using the beta of ios 11 on my phone for weeks, and on my ipad for a week, and have had absolutely no issues with the betas. Lasst night, I updated my wife's iphone and ipad from ios 10 to 11 and of course it went extremely smoothly, to the point where I didn't need to think about it.
The update downloaded quickly too, so no problem with their servers being overloaded.
All in all, I wish people would stop whingeing about these things. Apple's updates might not always be perfect but compared to Microsoft (they abandon products and their updates are unreliable beyond belief) and Google (Android updates are 6-9 months late - if you get them at all!), the Apple update process is smooth as silk.
But if apps haven't responded to repeated warnings in over three years, they're not "good" or "important." They're unsupported.
Whether for lack of continuing interest on the coder's part, or lack of a revenue stream, they're unsupported. At some point, the OS vendor has to say they're not particularly good or important to its App Store.
Don't know about Android, but anyone using iOS apps who eve looks at App Store updates realizes that most supported apps are updated weekly or at least monthly for big fixes, &c. That probably means the ones with decent revenue streams.
This post has been deleted by its author
Would that be MultiConvert by any chance? I am going to miss that.
I don't use it that often, but it has soooo many conversions to offer. I can understand why it hasn't been updated in so long, afterall, what do you change in something that offers factual conversions? maybe add some more categories, but it is already pretty exhaustive. I hope the developer does 'update'' it.
Updated an iPad - without problem.
The most noticeable change has been to the Control Center, where to get the volume/brightness etc controls to display now required a double up swipe rather than the single one previously. Also the volume and brightness controls themselves aren't obviously slide controls, even though that is what they are.
Beyond that, the changes don't seem so pronounced.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
