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Certain Apps No Longer Work On iOS 11, So Flappy Bird Is Officially Gone Forever On Apple Devices
If you hadn't heard, iOS 11 is out ahead of next week's release of the iPhone 8, adding features like a file manager and paying people money through text messages. It also killed all 32-bit apps.
Apple has been warning app developers since 2014 that all apps need to support 64-bit apps. There are long and complicated explanations for what that means, but essentially, the hardware in new iPhones and iPads is only really taken advantage of by 64-bit apps, and Apple codified this officially with iOS 11. This means that plenty of older apps, including games, haven't been updated since Apple started enforcing this. If, for example, there is a game that came out in 2013 but the developer abandoned it or went out of business before ever updating it to 64-bit, that game simply will not work after the newest firmware update.
This is specifically the case for Flappy Bird, whose creator Dong Nguyen abandoned the game after it briefly caught the world's attention, which proved overwhelming for Nguyen. He has stated on his Facebook that, while he is aware that Flappy Bird can no longer be played on Apple devices, he has no intention of updating it. Nguyen has moved on from the project and thanks everyone for being a fan.
Flappy Bird is not the only game that is no longer available on iOS, as the business reality makes it so app developers come and go all the time. Apple does have tools for helping you figure out what apps will no longer work, but it does speak to the ephemeral nature of gaming with living systems.
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