Apple Deprecating Legacy Binaries for Push Notification Service on November 2020, Recommends Developers Update Soon

these deprecations give apps an eventual expiration date. Other platforms don't do this as much.

Funny you say that, because on the topic of push notifications, both Google and Microsoft have deprecated (and killed) their previous APIs, while Apple still supported the original one.

Apps won't stop working. Some might not get push notifications anymore, but most who don't migrate probably don't have them working anymore, anyway. This is only a server side change.

It means that eventually down the line everyone has to buy new hardware that can run a version of iOS that supports this if they want to revel in the glories (or shackles) of the walled garden.

No they won't. At least not because of this depreciation: this only means that backend developers have to update their code.

Most already migrated to the new API, or use providers that have. This has literally no incidence on whether your phone can run an app or not, and it's nothing buying new hardware will fix.

Heading should say “binary protocol” not “binaries”

I wish Apple would stabilize their APIs so that these deprecations would end.

It's sad when old apps won't work anymore because newer versions of iOS break them. Some apps are no longer maintained but still have value; these deprecations give apps an eventual expiration date. Other platforms don't do this as much.

I wonder what this means for older apps that can’t be updated, or older devices that can’t run new apps...

I wish Apple would stabilize their APIs so that these deprecations would end.

It's sad when old apps won't work anymore because newer versions of iOS break them. Some apps are no longer maintained but still have value; these deprecations give apps an eventual expiration date. Other platforms don't do this as much.

Other platform do this all the time. If you think that any API's can be "stable", you are very much mistaken. Software is something that always need to be maintained and updated, and leaving a ten-year-old API behind is natural as better protocols are adopted. Not to mention this is a server-side change that doesn't have anything to do with iOS versions and doesn't affect any in-app functionalities.

Apple literally can’t win. I’ve never seen a company get hate over updating APIs.

@everyone complaining about Apple keeping their APIs up to date...

WTF?

Nothing directly. It only affects the protocol that is used to talk between the app's servers to Apple's push servers.

If an app hasn't been updated, its doubtful that the authors are still paying to run servers.

I believe most apps' authors don't talk to Apple directly anyway but use a third-party push service like Google Firebase and Amazon Pinpoint. That way they don't have to deal with the intricacies of the protocol, or with multiple platforms (Google, Apple, Baidu, Amazon, Microsoft)

Firebase is quite popular, we've used in one of our projects and it is easier as you can support iOS and Android.
We do have some apps without third party push services and we switched to a new script to communicate with APN a few months ago, so we're not affected by this deprecation, but it only took us a day to switch so it is a cost, but not a huge waste of time.

I wonder what this means for older apps that can’t be updated, or older devices that can’t run new apps...

Nothing directly. It only affects the protocol that is used to talk between the app's servers to Apple's push servers.

If an app hasn't been updated, its doubtful that the authors are still paying to run servers.

I believe most apps' authors don't talk to Apple directly anyway but use a third-party push service like Google Firebase and Amazon Pinpoint. That way they don't have to deal with the intricacies of the protocol, or with multiple platforms (Google, Apple, Baidu, Amazon, Microsoft)

Why would they remove Touch ID support anytime soon when they introduced new iPads THIS year with Touch ID?

They’re not going to!!!!!!!!!