The next big iOS update, iOS 11, has been let out into the world just ahead of the iPhone 8’s launch and it’s changing up a few things for game developers.
Though the update itself brings a number of changes to the platform, iOS 11 also marks the official end of 32-bit apps on iPhones and iPads. It’s a change Apple has been signaling for months, starting with the removal of outdated apps earlier this year and, more recently, adding a dialog box to 32-bit apps warning users that the end is nigh.
Developers, meanwhile, have spent the last several months deciding if apps were worth the 64-bit upgrade. It’s no small amount of work to bring a non-compliant app in line with current requirements, and many developers have opted to convert none of their games or only part of their catalog to 64-bit because of that.
This past March, analytics firm Sensor Tower estimated that as many as 187,000 could lose support when iOS 11 released. According to those numbers, games would be the category most affected by the swap, with 38,619 32-bit apps in the store at the time.
But there is a spot of good news to be found for mobile developers among all of this, especially those interested in augmented reality games. Apple showed off the AR capabilities of the iPhone X during its recent live event, and the ARKit used to create those games have now been released in full. More details ARKit can be found over on Apple’s developer portal.