High-level emulator for iPhone OS apps(github.com) |
High-level emulator for iPhone OS apps(github.com) |
Exactly zero software that I purchased on the App Store since 2009 still functions at all, on the exact same platform. What a pathetic showing by Apple.
Windows (and thus anything mimicking it) is also a bit of on outlier when it comes to backwards compatibility anyway. There aren’t too many other systems still being developed that a 14 year old binary will run on, let alone run correctly.
GP is highlighting a problem with Apple, and it's quite true. I have a licenses to Macomedia Fireworks (from 2010) for macOS and Windows. Windows version works still flawlessly. macOS dropped 32-bit support after Mojave (2018). I paid good money for Fireworks, and more importantly I loved that app.
They certainly got a lot more powerful, but the fundamental software architecture hasn't radically changed. An iPhone OS app from 2008 can be recompiled for 2023's iOS and will still work. iPhone OS inherited its whole architecture from OS X, which gave it room to grow into more powerful devices without radical changes. Pre-iPhone smartphones were a different beast.
I am pretty sure this is referring to the Mac App Store, and would also apply to Steam for Mac or really trying to run any mac software from more than a couple of years ago. Apple's aggressive deprecation of Carbon and 32-bit have personally caused me maddening frustration a very large number of times. As much of a technical achievement as Rosetta 2 is, I also expect them to drive a nail through its heart at the first opportunity. I think Apple should have allowed their compatibility layers and deprecated libraries to flow into open source or community maintained projects instead of simply being abandoned.
They simply don't care.
About 10% still works on MacOS.
History matters and Apple could invest a bit here to go a long way.
https://blog.timac.org/2020/1122-comparing-iphone-os-with-io...
Apple appears to be rather focused on not keeping legacy stuff around too long. Good on them.
I don't believe this. Perhaps you meant "Every single program"? ;)
Note you can run 32-bit Windows games through WINE/Rosetta.
This is exciting! There are a bunch of great iOS and iPadOS games that no longer work that my kids and I would love to play again! It's disappointing that Apple can do things like Rosetta but didn't work hard enough on keeping compatibility with old iOS versions.
I heard this from someone who was on the team, I was not allowed to actually join or work with them, because I had worked for Apple previously and they were afraid of the Andy Rubin issue, where iOS's actual source code existed in my brain, so theoretically Apple could sue Facebook.
Maybe even all the games I purchased before they were updated to include all the IAP’s.
I am so looking forward to the possibilities.
Carbon was likely kept alive longer than Apple wanted to due to heavy usage from major players (MS, Adobe, etc). In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the short lifetimes and hard cutoffs on newer compatibility tech is a result of their experience with Carbon… they really don’t want devs leaning on these things for significant amounts of time, and as nice as it would be if they open sourced those technologies it’d run counter to their goals of getting devs migrated over to the current stack.
I can't run Mac Steam games on Mac because Apple dropped 32-bit support.
The flip side of this is that both Linux and macOS are typically a bit more reliable than Windows. The heavy focus on backwards compatibility limits what Microsoft can do to push NT forward. Also, Microsoft should more heavily leverage NT’s personalities… that’d be fun.
The Ace Attorney collection was excellently packaged for iOS, and I want to keep playing one of the best-published versions of this trilogy, but now the UI doesn't render properly.
I'm not saying that it's trivial, but we both know it is absolutely possible. Apple keeps putting the focus on "gaming" in its iPhone keynotes, but if they were serious about gaming, they'd make the games I already bought continue to work.
Demand isn't the only reason to make a feature, sometimes customers might want something only after they're given the opportunity to recognize it's value.
Many older apps may use undocumented functionality or non obvious quirks of the system that an emulator may miss, which means you'd need to have a QA team testing individual apps for compatibility.
Part of Apple's brand is usability and a lack of rough edges. The downside of that is that building a tool like this up to their standards would be prohibitively costly.