I have released an App in the App Store with target platform 5.1. The app also was developed using SDK 5.1. My customer phoned me and said this is crap because als the jailbroken phones aren't able to download the app yet - because there is currently no jailbroken version for 5.1.
What do I have to do? I'm coming from Android - therefore I want to be really sure what I am doing when applying an App update to ensure that it is also available for 5.0 users.
I also use a Library Project - which also uses SDK 5.1 as shown in the screenshot below.
I would be really glad about some instructions how to reduce the required version for the app and if there are some compatibility troubles/problems occurring to my code when I do this.
You should change the deployment target, in the summary tab of the target, as shown in the image:
And call your customer and tell him there is already Jailbreak for 5.1 ;)
Release App version 1.1 with deployment Target OS as 5.0 or what ever else version you want to include ...
Just found this now while researching another question, so I'm sure this has already been handled, but here's my $0.02, eight years later....
You provided a working app to the App Store. All apps on the App Store are guaranteed to work on compatible iPhones that have not been jailbroken.
If your user is doing non-sanctioned things with his iPhone, it's not really your concern. There were plenty of big-name apps which had the same problem as yours: people couldn't use the latest version because a jailbreak wasn't yet available. They had to wait until such a jailbreak was out. That's the risk you take with using a jailbreak.
The difference here is that if FaceBook or WhatsApp or whatever big-name app changed its target SDK to an iOS version that did not yet have a jailbreak, users couldn't call Zuckerberg on the phone to complain or threaten. You, as an independent developer, got the phone call.
It's a balancing act. You want to use the latest, greatest features of the iOS version, but existing users might not have the latest, greatest OS. So you have to decide what's more important: new features or supporting existing users.
Related
Like the question says, will I be able to submit iOS5/iOS6 apps to the App Store given that iOS7 is rolled out now? Or do I have to target iOS7 for my builds?
I understand that there is a great amount of UI changes, new features, not looking good, etc involved but I just want to know if it is still possible to submit old targets
Cheers
Yes it is still possible to submit apps targeted at older versions, as long as they perform on iOS 7 as well.
There is also now an option for people using legacy versions of iOS to download app versions that are targeted for that version.
Nice article about that here: http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/09/17/apple-begins-allowing-users-running-legacy-ios-builds-to-download-older-versions-of-apps/
Your app is built to a specific SDK version, which is different from the deployment target. Apple typically require you to submit apps that have been built to the latest public SDK version, although I believe right now you can still submit apps built to iOS 6.
So you can target iOS 5/6 as you require - however, going forward your app will have to be built with the iOS 7 SDK.
We're talking about making the minimum iOS version of our consumer facing app 5.0+. We have a few questions, and I was unable to find a great resource for the answers:
For existing users with 4.xx, when the next update is released, will they just not see the update in the App Store? IE, until they update their iOS version to our new minimum version, they will never see the most recent update and will be "stuck" on the previous version?
For new customers with 4.xx, when they search for our app on the App Store, will it show up in search results? If so, what will be displayed when they click Install ?
Thank you for your help. I found lots of information on specifically 3.xx to 4.xx, but wanted to get a more detailed explanation for the scenarios explained above. If there is Apple developer documentation for this, please point me in the right direction.:)
Thanks!
Yes.
If you specify the deployment target for your app as iOS 5.x, your customers running iOS 4.x won't see an update on the app store and will be stuck at the previous versions of your app.
New customers running iOS 4.x will be able to see the app but won't be able to install it. They'll get a system error message that iOS 5 is required to install this app.
Hope that helps.
The App store on the device will filter out apps and updates that are inappropriate for the current iOS device OS version. The user won't see them (or if they see them on some devices, won't be able to download or install them).
However, the iTunes App Store on the customer's Mac or PC will not filter by OS version. iTunes will download apps that the user can't install on their devices running older iOS versions, and, far worse, will put any working app versions in the trash after downloading their useless updates.
The App store does not filter apps based on the operating system of your device. It will show iOS 5 apps even if your device is iOS 4. The update will definitely appear in iTunes. I don't know about whether it shows up in the updates in the app itself.
I currently have an app in the app store that works for iPhone users running iOS version 3.0 or newer. My next version of the app is going to use ARC, so it will only work for users running iOS version 4.0 or newer.
According to this answer, the users will be able to download the newer version, but it just won't run when they try to run it.
Is there any way to prevent users who can't run the app from even downloading it from the AppStore?
I haven't tested this recently, but in February 2011, and iOS 4.x, I had users who couldn't download my app as there device wasn't running the required version of iOS.
They received a nice explanation message on their device, courtesy of the App Store app, when trying to download the app directly to their device.
I'd be very surprised if this wasn't still the case.
So, set the deployment target in your target build settings, and let the App Store / iTunes take care of who can install it.
That was for new installs, and it be different for updates (rather than new installs) but again I'd be surprised if this wasn't handled by Apple for the sake of a better user experience.
UPDATE
I dug out my old iPhone 3 which reached the end of the road at 4.2.1 and resynced it with iTunes - the latest apps that require 4.3 etc are ignored, and are not overwritten with incompatible versions, as I would expect.
I also tried to update my own app (I'm a developer), requiring 4.3 and above, from the store via the device itself, and got a polite pop-up alert saying the app requires iOS 4.3 and above, again just as I'd expect.
The app was previously compatible with < 4.3, and somewhere along the line I bumped up the minimum iOS version requirement, so it is definitely possible.
So, you should just set your updated app's 'deployment target' version appropriately, and it will only be updated on compatible devices.
No. A new higher minimum Deployment target will prevent a user from installing an app on a device with a lower OS version, but will not prevent them from downloading the app using iTunes on their Mac or PC, even though they can't install the update once downloaded.
I have an application that I would ideally like to run on all iOS versions, however I think Apple accepts apps only from a version and above (3.0 I think, but not sure). So my question would be, what's the minimum iOS target version you can send in review (and get accepted). If anyone with greater iOS publishing experience would answer my question it would be great and maybe point out some places where I can read about it.
Many thanks!
Sometime last year, an Apple DTS employee posted (and later clarified) on the iOS Developer Forums that the App store would no longer be accepting apps with a Deployment Target lower than 3.0. That might indicate that a lower Deployment Target has or will become grounds for an app to be rejected.
I would never set the Deployment Target lower than that of the lowest OS version among the devices I plan to use to test the app before submitting it to the App Store.
Also, the installed based of devices which haven't been upgraded to 3.0 or above might be too microscopic to be worth a developer's time or effort (unless you happen to still have and use one for some reason).
ADDED in 2013: App store submission now requires that the app support the 4" display, which requires iOS 6.0 or later, which allows a minimum deployment target no lower than iOS 4.3
To back up what hotpaw2 indicated, this is from the News and Announcements for iOS Developers on June 29, 2010:
Make sure that your applications are
compatible with iOS 4. All new
applications and updates to existing
applications must be built with iPhone
SDK 4. In addition, the App Store will
no longer support applications that
target iOS 2.x.
ok... strangely Im having a hard time verifying this... but it's my belief that you must build your app with the latest base SDK (4.0), but you can target an IOS version all the way back to 2.0. Ill continue to try to verify that.
You can only build your apps with the SDKs you have installed.
Since XCode will nuke your old SDKs whenever you upgrade (unless you install XCode elsewhere), it is assumed that you will always be building using the latest stable SDK version. This is in contrast to, say, Android, which will always retain SDKs whenever you upgrade.
Your deployment target can go back as far as you want, right back to 2.0 - but you may find it difficult to actually test it on that platform! Most people would just target 3.x upwards, which gives you as close to 100% coverage as makes no difference.
I am getting a fat binary when I go to upload, and I want to make sure that my application can run across 3.0, well even 2.0. Is there a specific way to make sure that this will show when I go to upload. I am not using any specific iOS 4 features, and I only have iOS 4 in my xCode. How can I test different iOS version?
The only way as I could think of is test your app on real old OS version devices. Since Apple prefers its users to upgrade to new OS version as soon as possible, they don't actually provide an official way for developers to test such backward compatibility.
Another relevant questions would be, "can I downgrade my device OS version to an old one, so that I can test my app on them?" I once did a research on SO and other Apple forums, and the result I got was NO, we developers don't have a way to "officially" downgrade our device OS version. Yes there are exceptions, you can try jail-breaking and then downgrading.
For jail-breaking / downgrading your OS version, check this post, A TimeMachine taking my iDevice back to 3.1.2? .
Edited: It's actually pretty easy to make sure that users with old OS versions can downloaded and install your app. All you need to do is set the Deployment Target in Xcode to the lowest OS version you want (iOS 3.0 would be the lowest in Xcode 3.2.5).
However, you need to bear in mind that such Deployment Target only ensures that your app can be downloaded and installed on such old version OS devices. They don't ensure compatibility during runtime. You still need to test your app on real old OS devices to ensure compatibility.
I dont think u need to worry about app version 3.0 below because it is not supported anymore. but how to test on different version, make sure change the iOS deployment target as Thomas refered.
There is no currently supported way to do this.
No current Simulator or Xcode tool will ensure that an app is completely compatible with an OS version older than the SDK used. The 2.0 SDK is not compatible with the current development tools. There is no officially supported way to downgrade a device.
Furthermore, Apple no longer even accepts app submissions that have a deployment target lower than 3.0.
Even most old 1st gen devices, if you can find one on eBay, have been upgraded to iOS 3.1.3. But if you have access to an old device running iOS 3.1.3, you can use that for testing. Many developers keep an old used iPod Touch around for just his purpose.
People with devices running something older than 3.1.3 are not only a really tiny percentage of the installed base, but are very unlikely to be still buying apps for that device. Even large developers with staff and legacy hardware available for this testing rarely waste the time on this market.
Look into Project -> Edit Project Settings -> iOS Deployment Target: 3.13. And then build?
Edit according to comment: You still need to ENSURE your code is within the runtime scope, i.e. do checks like 'respondstoselector' before calling methods in question.