Malaili, I´m all with you. Not so much on the particular issue, but on the fact, that it´s not really fair to forget about the "no iOS 7 - skritteres".

I´ve been dealing with some bugs on my iPod for quite some time now, and was told that "the next update will fix it". And then - surprise - said upate is not availabe for me.

I bought my iPod especially for skrittering when the app came out a year ago. So although I really love Skritter, I´m not prepared to buy another device just to be able to use it properly.

I'm in the same boat and wrote a lenghty post on what I think in the IOS7 thread.
http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=368826309&comments=56

I'm on the software developer's side with this one. The only way that Skritter could support ancient versions of iOS is to either never use any new features which are added to the OS, which hurts the future of the app

Alternatively they could test for the OS version everywhere before using new OS features- a development, maintanence, and support nightmare which would lead to a much less stable app. (I'm not sure if Apple even allows this, don't know enough about iOS development to say)

Another option, which seems to be what you are suggesting, would be to release an "iOS7 Skritter" app and port bug fixes back to the old Skritter. This is confusing for new users, and again a big development and maintanence hassle. Also users would very likely still complain that their version of the app was missing new features.

As a user with an old device you can either use the old version of Skritter, and live with the bugs, get a new device- for example find one used and sell your old one. I realise it sucks for your device to not be supported any more, but can you see why the cost to Skrittet of the above options might be greater than the benefit?

Tarya92 it's a shame that you weren't advised to buy a 5th generation iPod touch a year ago (although perhaps you bought it more than a year ago, as Skritter was released in June 2012). The fault is really Apple's for dropping iOS7 support from 4th gen iPod touch. This was quite an unusual step as usually devices have stayed supported for more like 2-3 years, but again there might be some technical justification for this.

There was indeed a technical justification: the 4th-generation iPod Touch and the 1st-generation iPad were both dropped a year or so ahead of schedule essentially because Apple made the mistake of shipping them with too little RAM: 256 MB, the same amount as the much-lower-resolution iPhone 3GS, whereas the 5th-generation iPod and 2nd-generation iPad shipped with 512, the same amount as the iPhone 4/4S and iPad Mini. So each of those devices had half of the RAM of any other device with their screen resolution.

Even on iOS 6, the 4th-generation iPod Touch tended to be very unstable with a lot of apps, and as there was no way to designate an app as incompatible with that model specifically, you ended up with a whole bunch of games and other RAM-intensive apps loudly proclaiming on their title pages that "THIS APP IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE 4TH GENERATION IPOD TOUCH" and nevertheless getting hammered in reviews by angry users who didn't read that warning.

Practically speaking, iOS 7's hardware requirements are steep enough that it would have been unlikely to be viable on the 4th-generation Touch anyway, but even if Apple had somehow been able to get it working I think most of the developer community would have asked them not to because we're eager to be able to finally put that device behind us.

For those of you living in china.

Second hand ipod touch 5g
http://s.taobao.com/search?initiative_id=staobaoz_20131020&jc=1&q=ipod+touch4%B6%FE%CA%D6&tab=old&stats_click=search_radio_old%3A1

Around 1350RMB.

I bought my last ipod touch 4g (second hand) there for around 600RMB.

I wish I could use Taobao, beyond my level though.

That last post was mine, I don't what happened.
BTW, I ain't that hard buying there and it's really effective, much more than ebay. I've been buying in that website since I came to china and haven't had one problem.

Taobao isn't hard to use, and both Taobao and eBay are safe if you buy from sellers with good ratings. I've even successfully shopped on Taobao from outside of China, using an agent who receives the stuff, charges a commission, and ships the whole order out together. Works well for things that are expensive or unavailable elsewhere.

Apple App store does not support branched releases. This technical limitation means that the developer cannot update previous versions. The developer can only release new versions.

As I said above, they'd have to release an iOS7 app, and a non-iOS7 app (that's 2 apps in the App Store, not 2 versions), which is confusing for everyone, now and in the future. Apple might not be too happy about it either.

Your best hope is probably to ask for a custom build- basically a development build of the old pre-iOS7 version with the bug fixes that you want added. This might not even be possible, depending on how their build environment is set up. Either that or look into getting some hardware.

I don't want to switch to iOS 7 on my iPhone 4S either (because they say there are huge lags and such in there and also because I find the new design too ugly), so from now on I'm also going to be cut off from the updates and bug fixes. I wish the Skritter developers had asked around first to see if people are ready to update to iOS 7 before making this switch.

@Alan, you said, "The only way that Skritter could support ancient versions of iOS is to either never use any new features which are added to the OS, which hurts the future of the app". What future exactly will it hurt? IMHO, the App is almost perfect already, no design or interface changes are necessary. I think, from now on, only bug fixes and perhaps some minor changes are necessary. Why was it so important to make use of the new features that iOS 7 supports and iOS 6 doesn't? I really don't understand this.

Were these new features so important that they had to confuse and make unhappy so many loyal users who don't want to update to iOS 7?

That question appeared to be addressed to me, but I can't answer it I'm afraid, as I know no more than any other forum reader about the future direction of Skritter.

@Alan, I'm sorry if I confused you with this question. When you said that [it would] "hurt the future of the app," I thought that you were referring to something particular. In fact, you kind of answered this question in another recent post of yours in a different thread when you mentioned the "background fetch" feature. A good example, thanks, but I'm still not convinced that it was worth it to force all the "iOS-Skritterers" to update to the new iOS so quickly. But this is a question to the developers of Skritter, of course, not to you.

I don't know if the Skritter switch to require iOS7 was worth it either, and you're entitled to come on the forums and complain if you don't like it. I really think you are making a bit too much fuss about upgrading a 4S to iOS7 though- most reviews (and my own experience) seem to suggest the problems are minor or non-existent, e.g. http://www.gottabemobile.com/2013/09/23/ios-7-on-iphone-4s-review/

If you do decide to upgrade to iOS7, there are lots of blog posts out there to help you switch off unnecessary things that can help with performance and battery life:
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57604853-285/how-to-speed-up-ios-7-on-an-older-device/
http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/167013-ios-7-how-to-improve-your-iphone-4s-and-iphone-5-battery-life-and-reduce-lag

The article (link #1 in the Alan's post) says iPhone 4S works fine with iOS 7, but the comments below the article say otherwise! :)

I think I'll have to wait longer before I'm ready to upgrade.

I also have a backup plan. I'd like to buy an iPad mini 2 (with Retina Display) when it becomes available, so I guess I can also use it to test the new iOS on it. And if I like it, I'll take the risk and update my iPhone 4S too. It is also possible that I'll move all my Skrittering activity from iPhone to the new iPad mini.

I can only hope that Skritter will continue to support users with devices running older versions of iOS for the time being!

iPhone 4 was definitely a lot slower after upgrading to iOS7. Sometimes maddeningly slow.

I did a full reset, turned off some of the new iOS7 features (background app refresh, turn on "reduce motion", turn on "increase contrast"), and generally find the phone quite a bit more responsive after doing all that. App startup speed was better and the keyboard no longer stuttered.

After those changes I'm pretty happy with the performance of the iPhone 4 and iOS7.