As promised a while ago, Apple has started with the app purge outdated and barely visible in the App Store. They would have started to send emails to developers whose applications have not received an update for a long time and who would be the main objective of this clean of the application store.
In order to keep the applications in the App Store, the affected developers they will have to release an update for Apple to review and decide whether or not to keep it within its store. Otherwise, the application will disappear. Apple's letter reads like this:
Dear developer,
On September 1, 2016, we announced that we were going to implement an evaluation and removal process for apps that do not work as they should, do not follow review policies or are outdated.
We have detected that your app has not been updated in a long period of time.
Next steps
To keep the application in the App Store, please release a new version for review that meets the requirements in 30 days. If you are unable to release an update within 30 days, your application will be removed from the App Store until you submit an update and it is reviewed.
If we delete your App
It will stay fully functional for users who already have it. They will not suffer an interruption in their services, the in-app purchases will continue to work and they will be able to download it again in case of having to restore. However, we recommend that you update the app as soon as possible to relaunch it on the App Store to ensure that it remains functional for new users.
You can continue to use the name of your app, as it has not been deleted from your account.
In addition, Apple now does not accept updates or new apps with names that exceed the 50 characters since they have detected that many developers used long names to have more influence in the search engines.
Without a doubt, this is good news for users, who will have a cleaner App Store and only cared apps that have updates can be downloaded.