4 generations of the iPod Touch and I assume the iPhone. Games in the store that will work great on all, slow on some, with problems on others or great on others. The store will let you buy any game for any machine through iTunes even though it knows what has been connected. Releases here (in TA) make little of any mention of what devices do what. So the marketplace is fragmenting. IPhones may update every year with a contract but the Touch does not. Game updates do not show any information so when a developer upgrades and excludes OS3 / 1st gen as a result you are completely SOL. You paid, you had, you had it taken away. Even if they did you cannot opt-out a game from updating automatically. Some will say we should go buy the latest and greatest at every chance but this is not about money. You can probably own a 4th gen machine yet buy a 1st gen app which will not work. It's getting to be a mess and it won't get better.
You can CAN keep your app from updating. add. you can store it away in save place. setup a new user on your PC/MAC and authorize you computer and put those old games to that new users´s library and never hit "check for updates" in iTunes. iTunes does not do automatic app updates. Mine does never. game updates info can be seen on the according apps page in iTunes BEFORE you choose to update them. And usually devs give a complete overview what they did for the new version. And IF you accidentally updated, the old version is still in your Trashbin, and can be easily recovered. Apps management will be messy, I give you that.
In iTunes it just has the Update button. No other advice. Unless you update daily you are more than likely to just update all. And yes you can backup - I have a copy of almost everything I bought - but the principles about about a mess still stand.
I don't think so. My target platform is usually a second generation iPod Touch. That's the lowest required for Game Center. That's Apple drawing a line, not me. Developers should want to market their game to the largest audience possible. Also, I don't think that free updates should be infinite. That's asking too much from developers. If a major change is made, big enough that new hardware is required, then the game should probably be released as a new app. Here are some update guidelines that I follow... Don't put iAds in paid apps, especially if they weren't there before. Updates should improve the game, faster and more optimized. Don't make major changes. Even if the new idea seems so much better, some players might like the older version.
