Last month, when the once-popular app Foursquare finally shuttered, I knew I’d never delete it. I’d been using it on and off for well over a decade, first to share location check-ins with friends, and later as a Yelp-like city explorer. My usage had waned in recent years, but Foursquare had been a part of my digital life for so long that I still felt sad about its parent company ending the service. The app remains a swipe away on my home screen — abandoned, non-functional and yet something I don’t want disappearing.
Because of the way Apple Inc. regulates its products, if an app developer ceases operation, is kicked out of its mobile store or fails to release compatible updates, its software will stop working — but the app itself stays on your device, existing in a kind of platform purgatory. You can open it, though usually to error alerts. Or you can erase it, but then it will be gone forever. Over the years, my phone has stashed troves of these obsolete ghost apps, their familiar icons like tiny artifacts of a more innocent computer age.
