If you own a 16GB or smaller iOS device, it’s likely that you were looking forward to reaping the benefits of iOS 9’s new “app slicing” feature. So where the heck is it?
“App Slicing,” which allows developers to send optimally-sized versions of apps to various iOS device is so far MIA in iOS 9. The culprit is reportedly a bug in iCloud that is holding things up.
Slicing is a part of Apple’s app-thinning process that allows developers to deliver only the parts of the app that are needed for a particular device’s capabilities, resulting in a smaller file size. For example, 64-bit code wouldn’t download to a 32-bit device, and image resources would only be downloaded for the particular device’s graphics capabilities.
Sadly, Apple on Thursday notified developers that app slicing isn’t currently available for iOS 9 apps due to an issue with where iCloud backups created from iOS 9 would only restore to the same model device.
“When a customer downloads your iOS 9 app, they will get the Universal version of your app, rather than the variant specific for their device type,” Apple told developers.
Apple says app slicing will be re-enabled with a future software update. TestFlight will continue to deliver variants for internal testers.
