Fail Whale

iOS 10.3.3 Gets Incompatible Google Drive Update

Google Drive Update

Google Drive Fail Whale
Yes, I know this is not the original fail whale

Google gets today’s Fail Whale prize for distributing an updated version of Google Drive to iOS devices that are incompatible with the update. Nice work Google!

Several users are reporting that they have a Google Drive update sitting in their iOS updates list that they can’t install.

The problem seems to be an incompatibility with older devices. The iOS devices that are having this problem are ones that can not update to iOS 11 such as iPhone 5 and iPad 4.

The expected behaviour is for this update to never appear for devices that are incompatible. Google, however, has allowed this update to appear for devices running iOS 10.3.3. When the user attempts to install this update, they get a strange message stating that it requires 10.3.3 or later. However, if the user continues the install on a device running iOS 10.3.3, the install fails and the update continues to sit in the updates list.

Google support have not been very helpful with one user claiming that they were advised to uninstall the app.donaldf said:
Received this response from support:"To prevent it from popping up, you will have to uninstall the app. Good thing you can still access Google Drive through your iPad's browser... (productforums.google.com)

While Google Drive is a free app, Google can make it free only because many users also pay a subscription fee for the online storage that they use Google Drive to access. It is also an app that many users have come to heavily rely on.

When a developer prepares an app/update for distribution via the Apple App Store, they specify information that determines which devices can install the app/update. This process is called Setting the Deployment Target. It may be that Google has incorrectly specified some of this information for their latest update.


Posted

in

, , ,

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *