Installing apps on older versions of iOS

Ever tried to download an iOS app on your iThing and got a “This application requires iOS X.Y or greater” message, but no app? Annoying as heck.

There are various reasons you might not be able to install/run iOS X.Y. For example, I have an original iPad running iOS 5.1.1 – I can’t upgrade any higher, the device isn’t supported on later versions. My iPhone could have upgraded, but I ran out of storage space, so it couldn’t handle the installation, and I couldn’t find a convenient time to archive a bunch of content, so I was similarly blocked there for a while.

Newer apps (or newer releases of older apps) tend to make the most of the latest fun features in iOS, so don’t support older versions. But apps that have been knocking around for a while probably did at some stage, and that’s something you can take advantage of. Continue reading “Installing apps on older versions of iOS”

Downgrading Adobe Software

Most writers I’ve worked with don’t know that Adobe will allow you to downgrade a product by one version when you purchase the current version. This could come in useful, for example, if you have an expanding documentation team using software that’s not backwards-compatible (I’m thinking RoboHelp and FrameMaker in particular): instead of upgrading licenses for everyone on the team, you can buy current licenses for the newcomers and downgrade them to be compatible with the software the team is already using. More information is available at Adobe’s page on volume licensing policies.

It would be nice if you could roll back by more than one version, but given the cost of some of these products, having even that much flexibility can be enormously valuable!

Useful website with many tech writing tips and tricks

I’ve often found myself trying to figure out the solution to a problem in Framemaker, RoboHelp, or Word, and eventually wound up on a forum or page where the wonderful Peter Grainge has supplied the solution. His website – http://www.grainge.org/ – is a carefully curated treasure trove of tricks and fixes to get around a million problems tech writers encounter every day – I don’t know why I don’t just head straight there more often. I’d highly recommend you take a peek if you’ve never visited before.