What will happen to the Iphone/Ipad Apps we bought in ten or fifteen years?

I think most of the popular ones will continue ride the waves of advancements in technology, while the not-so-popular ones will be carried into the into the Bermuda Triangle of failed applications…

They will upgrade and improve them until they are unrecognizable, hopelessly slow and bloated and basically unusable. Isn’t that what usually happens?

All joking aside, there is really no way to know. Developers and programmers will move on or go out of business, the apps will not longer be needed, people will lose interest. It’s hard to say. One of my absolute favorite software applications if a freeware image view and image management program for Window called IrfanView. The developer, Irfan Skiljan, has been supporting and improving, reallly improving and developing that application since it was first released in 1996 but IrfanView is a real exception.

I think probably 99% of the iPhone and iPad apps will be dead in 10 years. Software applications either have to be financially viable or labors of love, I think.

They will celebrate their 15th birthday?

You will still be able to use them on an iOS emulator.

When was the last program for the TRS-80 written anyways? I don’t see many updates for MS-DOS stuff either.

As for free upgrades… not always. Owning a retail version of WinXP only entitles you to a discount on Win7, and many software makers don’t even offer that.

I would say that @lillycoyote is correct overall though.

@lillycoyote XnView is better!
/me runs

@jerv I’ve tried XnView. I just don’t like it as much as IrfanView. Really, sometimes, some of these things are just a matter of preference, not necessarily a matter of one thing being absolutely, intrinsically, inherently and verifiably “better” than something else. :-)

@lillycoyote Just yanking your chain :D Seriously though, it really is a personal preference thing. Those two are functionally identical.

@jerv LOL. Once again, lilly… way too earnest… needs to lighten up a bit. Four adverbs, in succession, was way over the top. :-)

I love Fluther, and spend lots of time on it. I was overjoyed when I found a Fluther app for both my iPhone and my iPad. Now after using it for a few months, on both,. while I can read the things listed as activity on the things I follow and on the suggested new questions, I cannot access the entire site. I think that eventually some of the apps we use may stop working like they used to.

Think about it. What did you do with your very first cell phone? 10 – 15 years from now you’ll probably have a chip in your head that you just think the words and they call the person. You’ll scan documents just by cybernetic eye implants, and your apps will be skill chips that are more than likely to augment your own capabilities.

Half the apps will go out of business, as would be normal for any startup.
Of the apps that still exist, they won’t work on your phone or iPad unless you buy a new phone or iPad every 4 years.
Phones and Apps were made to destroy the free-flowing internet.