Apple might stop supporting 32-bit apps in the next major release of iOS.

iOS developers shouldn't be too shocked by this news. Apple has supported 64-bit apps since the release of the iPhone 5S back in 2013 and has required developers to submit new applications with 64-bit support since February 2015 and app updates since June 2015.

A message to developers at the time read: "Starting February 1 2015 new iOS apps uploaded to the App Store must include 64-bit support and be built with the iOS 8 SDK, included in Xcode 6 or later.

"To enable 64-bit in your project, we recommend using the default Xcode build setting of 'Standard architectures' to build a single binary with both 32-bit and 64-bit code."

A warning in Apple's newly-released iOS 10.3 beta, suggests that iOS 11 will be the first version of iOS to stop supporting 32-bit apps altogether. 

While Apple has been warning iPhone and iPad users since iOS 9 that launching 32-bit apps may hinder their device's performance, a new alert in iOS 10.3 beta 1 appears to show that support for 32-bit apps will be removed from future iOS releases, likely as Apple looks to push developers to get their apps up to scratch. 

Apps that aren't updated to support 64-bit likely will be culled from the App Store. Last year, the company had pledged to remove apps that were orphaned, outdated, no longer met guidelines, or were in some way borked if they remained as was after 7 September.

Source: theinquirer