Terrific post by Matt Gemmell regarding supporting latest-only versions of iOS. He makes some solid arguments for why you should, including this one about “better customers”:
I think that there’s a correlation between the kind of people who keep their OS updated, and those who are willing to actually pay for software. I don’t have any data to back that up, but it makes sense that someone who’s interested and invested enough in their device to know there’s an update and have applied that update, would be more amenable to investing in a new app or two along the way.
I’ll definitely +1 one this. Again, I can’t prove this with data either, but it sure feels true. People who keep their software up-to-date tend to be savvier, more willing to spend appropriate amounts of money for software, and tend to be invested in the quality of their OS and application experience.
Matt also counters some of the common complaints used as an excuse to support ancient versions, including an excellent point about entitlement:
Bullshit. Customers are entitled to some updates, based on a mostly subjective combination of factors […]. If your app costs $500, your customers probably have a right to expect a year or more of updates, and certainly through to the next major release version (with an upgrade discount). If your app costs $2, anything you provide after purchase (other than fixes for particular egregious bugs) is essentially a courtesy. How mercenary and awful of me to say, but there you have it: Customers are not entitled to updates unconditionally.
And dealing with existing customers who refuse to upgrade but demand your application’s new version still support them:
To hell with those guys. It’s disproportionately burdensome to support them, they’re a shrinking market, they’re technological luddites, they want new stuff for free, and they’re vocal complainers. Seriously, you want to do nice things for these people? What’s wrong with you?
The whole post is gold and completely inline with how I feel about iOS version support. Be sure to read the updates near the end where Matt also responds to a ridiculous Twitter reply he received.
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