>Apple tells me I could have avoided all this pain if my app was being downloaded above a “minimum download threshold”. The policy is completely silent on what this download number needs to be to avoid getting flagged as outdated–is it hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of downloads a month?
I think this is a fair policy as well. From Apple's POV how can they ensure many apps in the app store still work on the latest phones? If the developer has been updating the app, they can be relatively sure. If the developer hasn't, but the app continues to be downloaded with success they can also be sure the app works. But for an app the developer has (seemingly) abandoned and and nobody downloads? It's most likely broken. You could argue that that Apple should test the app before sending such a message but I think it's probably likely that (1) the majority of apps that are abandoned are broken and (2) the developers don't actually respond. It's easier to tell all the devs to get up to speed and those that actually care will submit the app for review (even if all you have to do is change a version number).
What actually sucks is if you have to rewrite parts of your app because even though the iPhone 22 Pro Max Plus w/ Turbo & Knuckles supports the same SDKs as the iPhone 4, Apple won't let you resubmit your app as is.
It also makes sense because it might not be a good idea to apply the same criteria everywhere. In an app category with 10,000,000 downloads per month, an app pulling 500 downloads a month might be a drop-worthy also-ran that's mostly just directing a few people away from better options & cluttering results. In a category with 1,000 downloads a month, the app with 500 dl/m is likely the best and most-popular app in that category and dropping it would be tantamount to dropping the whole category.
I think this is a fair policy as well. From Apple's POV how can they ensure many apps in the app store still work on the latest phones? If the developer has been updating the app, they can be relatively sure. If the developer hasn't, but the app continues to be downloaded with success they can also be sure the app works. But for an app the developer has (seemingly) abandoned and and nobody downloads? It's most likely broken. You could argue that that Apple should test the app before sending such a message but I think it's probably likely that (1) the majority of apps that are abandoned are broken and (2) the developers don't actually respond. It's easier to tell all the devs to get up to speed and those that actually care will submit the app for review (even if all you have to do is change a version number).
What actually sucks is if you have to rewrite parts of your app because even though the iPhone 22 Pro Max Plus w/ Turbo & Knuckles supports the same SDKs as the iPhone 4, Apple won't let you resubmit your app as is.