Hog Bay pulls back its iOS applications

Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 8, 2014 at 12:44 PM

Paul Korm wrote:
Pulling the app from the App Store doesn’t mean the installed copy you
>have will stop working. TaskPaper is pretty simple, so its probably
>going to work for a while to come. It used to be the case that if you
>backed up installed apps to a desktop then then could be reinstalled
>even if not on the App Store. Don’t know if that’s still possible.

This is an interesting question as to what happens to abandoned iOS apps or the ones that abandon your particular version of the OS. E.g. I’m on iPad 1, iOS 5. A while ago I got a notification from Workflowy that they will no longer support the iOS app for v. 5 and that it will turn into read-only. I figured that as long as I don’t update my current copy on my iPad I will be safe. But no. Even without me doing any app update they were able to deprecate my Workflowy app, so it’s read-only now. I also had other apps that were completely disabled, without warning. They just say “upgrade your OS”, which means “buy a new iPad.” I don’t seem to have a say in not wanting the “downgrade.”

So it seems to me that when you buy an iOS app, you are not buying software but only a service to use the software, and it is entirely unforeseeable as to how long that service will be available. This is quite different from buying software for the PC that you can keep forever, as long as you’ve got the hardware and OS to run it on.