Earlier this week, news broke of a massive cleanup of multiple deprecated apps removed from the App Store. This caused a lot of problems for the developers, so if you are looking for everything that happened in this situation, you can go to the following link.
Now Apple has had to go out and testify in the face of all this controversy. The company finally outlined what has to happen for your “outdated” app to be removed from the App Store. He also took the opportunity to comment that this project has been in development for a long time, it is not a novelty, considering that it began six years ago.
Outdated or abandoned apps on the App Store
Everything seems to indicate that this project was born approximately in September 2016. The company opted for this option to give life and freshness to the App Store, in addition to entering more newsrooms and granting policies that are better understood by developers.
Apple had to make the decision to remove certain applications, making it clear that they would be the abandoned and non-functional ones. Applications that no longer work at the time of download on current hardware. However, the company never made the standards totally clear. The apps will now be removed for poor maintenance by Apple.
The Criteria for Outdated Apps
Now with the passing of time, Apple has to deal properly with its developers. In this attempt to improve this relationship, published the decision criteria for deleting apps that are “abandoned.”
This criterion is mainly based on two categories:
- Developers who do not have their applications updated, at least in the last three years.
- Added to this point, applications that do not reach a minimum download. Applications in the App Store that do not have this will mean that they do not have enough downloads within 1 year.
In this case, developers will have an email in their inbox warning them of their app’s possible removal from the App Store.
Apple further stated that under this standard, the approximate number of applications that were already removed from the App Store amounts to 2.8 million. Also remembering that this program has been with some regularity in the App Store for some time now.
Extended appeal time for removal
Given the many annoyances from the developers, Apple intervened with these statements. However, it also relented a bit, giving its creators a bit more benefits. Now the removal notice appeal time for deprecated apps has been increased.
Now, the moment you receive notification from Apple, you as the developer of an apparently abandoned app on the App Store have plenty of time to appeal for its removal. The creator has 90 days to update his app and secure it for a while longer in the App Store, remember that at the beginning of the week it was only 30 days.
In case you are looking for a little more information about this case, you can access the official Apple site directly if you are a developer. The company indicates that on its page it clarifies any doubts about this app removal project.
