New Celebrity App Update Requires IOS 17 or Above (iPhone)?

[markeb]

Apple pretty much defines any iPhone model that hasn't been sold in at least 5 but less than 7 years "vintage". They can theoretically be repaired (subject to parts availability) and receive major security upgrades. They're a little unclear on version (whole number, if you will) upgrades, but I don't think they receive them.

 

iPhones become obsolete at 7 years. No official support.

 

The 8+ seems ancient to me, but it was discontinued in 2020. Apparently iOS 17 requires an A12 chip or higher; the 8 has an A11. Odd, because it's not even "vintage" by Apple's own definition. No idea what's different in iOS 17 (probably from a security standpoint) that Celebrity doesn't want to make its app backward compatible. 

[Charles4515]

55 minutes ago, markeb said:

Apple pretty much defines any iPhone model that hasn't been sold in at least 5 but less than 7 years "vintage". They can theoretically be repaired (subject to parts availability) and receive major security upgrades. They're a little unclear on version (whole number, if you will) upgrades, but I don't think they receive them.

 

iPhones become obsolete at 7 years. No official support.

 

The 8+ seems ancient to me, but it was discontinued in 2020. Apparently iOS 17 requires an A12 chip or higher; the 8 has an A11. Odd, because it's not even "vintage" by Apple's own definition. No idea what's different in iOS 17 (probably from a security standpoint) that Celebrity doesn't want to make its app backward compatible. 

Vintage means it can’t get replacement parts. Hardware can’t be repaired. The iPhone 8 Plus can be repaired. Software support has different dates. While it can’t get iOS 17 it still gets some software support. Celebrity has decided not to support earlier than iOS 17. But they could. What was in their last update that requires an iOS 17 feature? According to their release note for the version released a week ago Celebrity added a guest wallet to manage payment methods. It does sound like a major feature addition to their app. I don’t know why that would require iOS 17 but I am not an Apple developer so perhaps it does. 

Edited April 17 by Charles4515

[markeb]

9 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

According to their release note for the version released a week ago Celebrity added a guest wallet to manage payment methods. It does sound like a major feature addition to their app. I don’t know why that would require iOS 17 but I am not an Apple developer so perhaps it does. 

 

Me neither. If that's using an iOS 17 unique feature, that would (like it or not) explain it. Whether a guest wallet is really a necessity is a different question. I guess I'll see next month...

[omahabob]

2 hours ago, tfred said:

Phones are computers that happen to make phone calls and driven by software  Apps will not be always be able to be updated forever. Apps require technical resources on the phone that may not easy to develop a work around. Overall graphics, GUI and UI experience cant be adjusted to the lowest common denominator   

 

To some extent, X looks at then number of Apple SE (or whatever) and determines that the amount of development required to make an SE run is not worth the effort considering how many SE phones are on the market 

An SE is a phone model, and this has nothing to do with phone models. It's the OS (iOS) version at play here, and the app already worked with previous iOS versions. They just changed it so it no longer works with anything but the newest OS. So, it isn't a matter of adjusting development to the lowest common denominator. They were already at the lowest common denominator. They just developed to eliminate something that already worked fine.

[antsp]

8 hours ago, jennmaybe said:

Why?  Our phones are older than this and have no problems.  Then again, we don’t use apps for anything. Not everyone wants to pay hundreds of dollars a month for a cell phone. We prefer to spend our money traveling and splurging such as flying first class or Delta One Suites.

My cell phone cost me $15 a month for unlimited call, texts and 30gb of data, 15 is not 100s

[Ex-Airbalancer]

7 hours ago, PTC DAWG said:

I have zero issues with updates..running an iPhone 13 Pro here

Why would you with a 2 year old phone ? 
 

 

Why pay $100’s a month just wait until your kids upgrade their phones , got my recycled 128g IPhone 12 from my son yesterday 😁

Really,  cellphones plans are getting cheaper,  for $35 CAD , you get unlimited texting , Canada wide calling and 20 gigs of data 

it is a lot better than waiting until 11 pm to make calls to friends and family to get a discount rate 🤣

10 hours ago, hcat said:

For us it's budget specific! 

I upgraded my phone  last year,  but will wait til that phone is paid off  and my husb  upgrades next yr.. 

 

 We use phones to text each other, make some calls and I take pics.  Being retired helps not being on it  so much!

 

All this tech adds up..:  new phones, new tablet, new  home computer, lap tops...and new car ! We need a money tree!

you really you don’t need multi devices , 

why have desktop and laptop ? They can do same thing 

 

[cruisestitch]

I am also on a ship and got caught by this. It took three hours to download the new software needed in order to get back onto the app. The helpdesk people were given no notice that a potential problem was on the way and were very surprised when the app quit working on my phone.  The phrase “cluster” comes to mind.  😳

[Georgia_Peaches]

4 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

The phrase “cluster” comes to mind.  😳

A real Charlie Foxtrot as my DH would say 😂. 

[DaKahuna]

15 hours ago, omahabob said:

The issue here seems to be squarely in the lap of Celebrity. I suspect this was a simple mistake, because there are tons of customers out there still using older OS versions, and that are unable to upgrade. Hopefully they'll correct this soon.

 

  Really?  i thought the issue was that the phone hardware on the old phones can no longer support the requirements of the operating system and application.  As more an more Apple products migrate to the M series chips, away from Intel, this will become more of an issue. 

 

 The same applies to the A series chips in the iPHones.  The most recent iPhone SE has an A13 chipset.  The iPhone 15 has an A17 chipsets.  There are features in the A17 that IOS 17.x takes advantage of that are not available in the older chipsets. 

 

 As unfortunate as it may be, one should plan on refreshing mobile devices ever 3 to 5 years. Moore's law is still relevant and major corporations are normally on a 3-year hardware refresh.  Just makes sense to plan for 3 to 5 years in our personal devices as well. 

 

[DaKahuna]

3 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

why have desktop and laptop ? They can do same thing 

 

 For a normal everyday email and web browsing user I agree.  However, there are some of us that work/worked in the IT industry and may have unique requirements.  I have active computers running Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.  Three laptops, two desktops, and two tablets.  

 

 Yes, I just retired and will be eliminating some of those buy in the mean time, I find uses for each one in my daily life. 

 

[hcat]

4 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

Why would you with a 2 year old phone ? 
 

 

Why pay $100’s a month just wait until your kids upgrade their phones , got my recycled 128g IPhone 12 from my son yesterday 😁

Really,  cellphones plans are getting cheaper,  for $35 CAD , you get unlimited texting , Canada wide calling and 20 gigs of data 

it is a lot better than waiting until 11 pm to make calls to friends and family to get a discount rate 🤣

you really you don’t need multi devices , 

why have desktop and laptop ? They can do same thing 

 

The new desktop lives in NY where my husb does his spreadsheets and his game.. It's his baby!

 

My laptop visits Fla for the season where I can do ZOOM/TEAMS meetings.!  No else allowed to use it.

 

Fla laptop is shared as needed still takes disks.. and is used for dh  fav game  and my Fl photos. 

 

Cell Phones are used  mostly as phones,  and  my tablet  is exclusive for reading books or watching a movie on the plane

 

We have cable internet in  both places so no extra charges to use wifi at home.  

 

But we  have managed without phones or  the Celeb app quite well!

Edited April 17 by hcat

[PTC DAWG]

4 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

Why would you with a 2 year old phone ? 
 

 

Why pay $100’s a month just wait until your kids upgrade their phones , got my recycled 128g IPhone 12 from my son yesterday 😁

 

 

Like I said earlier, I don't pay anywhere near $100...unlimited everything, including data.  

 

And I'm the guy who locks his phone in the safe for the cruise.  🙂

[hcat]

13 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

Like I said earlier, I don't pay anywhere near $100...unlimited everything, including data.  

 

And I'm the guy who locks his phone in the safe for the cruise.  🙂

good plan!

[omahabob]

2 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

 

  Really?  i thought the issue was that the phone hardware on the old phones can no longer support the requirements of the operating system and application...

 

No, the age of the phone doesn't matter, other than the fact that older phones often won't run a new OS. The new app only works on iOS 17, even though it worked fine on the older versions before, so it's the app supporting the OS version that's an issue. As of last month, iOS 17.2 has a 4.03% share of global market usage (all OSs). iOS 16.6 has a 5.06% market share. So by developing an app that only woks on iOS 17, Celebrity has just eliminated more potential Apple users from it's customer base than it could cater to by supporting only the newest version. That's not a smart decision.

Edited April 17 by omahabob

[markeb]

1 hour ago, omahabob said:

No, the age of the phone doesn't matter, other than the fact that older phones often won't run a new OS. The new app only works on iOS 17, even though it worked fine on the older versions before, so it's the app supporting the OS version that's an issue. As of last month, iOS 17.2 has a 4.03% share of global market usage (all OSs). iOS 16.6 has a 5.06% market share. So by developing an app that only woks on iOS 17, Celebrity has just eliminated more potential Apple users from it's customer base than it could cater to by supporting only the newest version. That's not a smart decision.

 

I'm not going to disagree with that. But do you seriously think anyone in Celebrity management understands that? This version says it added a "guest wallet" which must only be available onboard or after check-in; I don't see it in my app. They're probably either leveraging a feature of iOS 17 for their security, or maybe didn't want to validate the security on older versions. The app development was probably outsourced. To a group that doesn't know anyone with an iPhone earlier than iPhone 11, and maybe even 12. They probably all have 15 Pros/Max. Why would being able to run iOS 17 be an issue?

 

This smells of a classic case of requirements creep coupled with continuing beyond the good idea cutoff point. Since probably no one has used the guest wallet yet, I can see a new release on the app shortly that runs on iOS 16. Without the new toy...

[omahabob]

4 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

 

 For a normal everyday email and web browsing user I agree.  However, there are some of us that work/worked in the IT industry and may have unique requirements.  I have active computers running Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.  Three laptops, two desktops, and two tablets.  

 

 Yes, I just retired and will be eliminating some of those buy in the mean time, I find uses for each one in my daily life. 

 

I worked IT almost exclusively in the Windows world, and the same still applied. A desktop will do things a laptop cannot do, and a laptop can go places a desktop can't, so you need both. Now that I'm retired, the laptop has been replaced by tablets, but each still has it's own place, and it's own unique capabilities.

[Charles4515]

2 hours ago, omahabob said:

No, the age of the phone doesn't matter, other than the fact that older phones often won't run a new OS. The new app only works on iOS 17, even though it worked fine on the older versions before, so it's the app supporting the OS version that's an issue. As of last month, iOS 17.2 has a 4.03% share of global market usage (all OSs). iOS 16.6 has a 5.06% market share. So by developing an app that only woks on iOS 17, Celebrity has just eliminated more potential Apple users from its customer base than it could cater to by supporting only the newest version. That's not a smart decision.

I have read that 70% of iPhone users have updated to iOS 17 but that is still a lot being left out. What is really problematic is making a new version that only works on iOS 17. I bunch of apps I use have been updated many times yet would still work on iOS 13 according to their developer notes. 

[omahabob]

That's the part that doesn't make sense to me. Moving forward is a good thing. But deliberately excluding a large amount of customers seems foolhardy.

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, markeb said:

 

This smells of a classic case of requirements creep coupled with continuing beyond the good idea cutoff point. Since probably no one has used the guest wallet yet, I can see a new release on the app shortly that runs on iOS 16. Without the new toy...

I agree that is probably requirements creep. Also I don’t see why the guest wallet feature would require iOS 17 or could not be modified to work with iOS 15 and iOS 16 but maybe it makes the phone work with tap to pay or open doors? 

[Jeremiah1212]

2 hours ago, markeb said:

 

I'm not going to disagree with that. But do you seriously think anyone in Celebrity management understands that? This version says it added a "guest wallet" which must only be available onboard or after check-in; I don't see it in my app.

 

If you complete a cruise planner purchase in the app like a shore excursion you now have the option for to add a default plus other credit cards that can be saved or can use Apple Pay.  

[Charles4515]

17 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

If you complete a cruise planner purchase in the app like a shore excursion you now have the option for to add a default plus other credit cards that can be saved or can use Apple Pay.  

That is not something that requires iOS 17. I have had apps that I make purchases in that saved credit cards and default payment or Apple Pay info for years. 

[Jeremiah1212]

36 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

That is not something that requires iOS 17. I have had apps that I make purchases in that saved credit cards and default payment or Apple Pay info for years. 

Right. However that’s not what I was addressing. Multiple payment methods and Apple Pay in the mobile cruise planner is new to the app. Though it does add a lot of complexity with handling and storing additional personal info.  

[markeb]

46 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

That is not something that requires iOS 17. I have had apps that I make purchases in that saved credit cards and default payment or Apple Pay info for years. 

 

Marriott, United Airlines, Target, REI...

 

Every app in the iOS store that allows in app purchases has had this almost from the beginning of iOS. If that's all the wallet is, then there's no good reason for it to require iOS 7! App development on the cheap? EU requirements? Some other driver of iOS 17?

 

8 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

Right. However that’s not what I was addressing. Multiple payment methods and Apple Pay in the mobile cruise planner is new to the app. Though it does add a lot of complexity with handling and storing additional personal info.  

 

Understand. But every app in the iOS store that allows in app purchases can do this and could do this probably going back to the first version of iOS. I don't expect a cruise company to be a great IT company, but this one should be explained. Or fixed...

 

The major change in their upgrade notes is the wallet. Maybe that's not the driver here. But if there's no real driver...

[JLMcruise]

Wrote the executive office and asked if the iOS requirement was going to remain intact at 17 or was Celebrity planning to change it back so older phones can use the app. Unfortunately,  No response. Has anyone else heard from Celebrity regarding this matter?

[cruisestitch]

Only occasionally do people get responses when they write to the executive office. I would certainly not be expecting one in this case and even if you hear from them, I would not be expecting them to change the requirements back to the previous.