Apple is tightening up its requirements for apps as it sent out a message to all devs in its developers portal, saying it wants all app submissions to be iOS 7 ready by February 1st. This includes new apps and updates to existing apps. The company is implementing this to get developers to enter its new Xcode 5 that brings 64-bit support and access to new features like back-grounding APIs.
The iOS maker knows what it’s doing here, reason why more than 74 percent of its iPhones and 63 percent of its iPads have iOS 7 already installed. That high installation rate doesn’t happen if Apple ran things in an overly lax way.
Actions like this is one of the main reasons why I continue to stick it out with the iPhone. They run a tight ship — no one tells them what to do, they tell everyone else what to do. This mentality goes for manufacturers, developers and carriers. It’s an open hand pimp slap to all! No, but really, this is great to enforce so it can bring every app up to speed with the entire OS. This is great for functionality as it alleviates app crashes from outdated versions.
[Apple Dev Portal; via TechCrunch]