According to PadGadget, just a few days after its release the iOS 5 was installed on 1 in 3 devices capable of running it.
When starting to develop a new app today in XCode I have to choose whether I want to use StoryBoards in it or not. If I choose yes, I will not be able to compile the app so it could run on the devices with the lower iOS versions than iOS 5.
In order not to leave more than two thirds of the potential users "overboard" the logical step would be to opt out the StoryBoards usage when starting a new app development.
On the other hand when the app is finished (let's say in 1-6 months) maybe 90% of iOS devices will be running iOS 5, thus it would make sense to start the development of a project today aiming for the support of iOS 5 or greater.
What are your opinions on this issue and how can one predict the approximate future usage of a new iOS?
My guess is that after 6 months a majority (say 60-70%) will have updated to iOS 5, but generally it's a good idea to support the two latest major OS versions.
That's probably going to change with iOS 5 forward, because of OTA updates, but for now I would keep supporting iOS 4.
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I am going to develop an Iphone application in IOS8.But I have no idea whether it will work on IOS7 and IOS6.Can anyone clarify my doubts with clear explanation?
Thanks & Regards
Sam.P
It would only support the older OSes if you didn't use any features exclusive to the newer OSes, and if you targeted the old OS when building the application. There is nothing stopping you from doing so, except that you will miss out on a lot of the new technologies (and adoption of recent iOS versions is very high traditionally among Apple's customers, so it isn't a huge issue generally to only support the latest version).
You must make this decision before you publish your app, the earlier the better. You can support all OSes starting from 6 and only use APIs and features available in 6. Or use all the new features of the 8 and make the app incompatible with the earlier versions.
Each published app has a target OS version. If you specify 8 then users with earlier OSes simply won't see your app in the app store. However it's not sufficient to set your target to 6 to support earlier system. You must be careful in using the APIs: each has a documented version where it became available. And you must test, at least in simulators with different OS versions. iOS 6 simulator is still available as a separate download for Xcode 5. I'm not sure about Xcode 6.
iOS 7 adoption wasn't as overwhelming as with earlier updates because Apple made big changes in the UI. So the iOS 6 user base is still significant. I think it still makes sense to support iOS 6 for a new commercial application.
How can i check the compatibility of my application, based on IOS 5.0.1 created with Xcode 4.3.3 on Lion, on IOS 6 without having to change my current MAC OS version and Xcode? Is there any way? And as an addition to this question, if i submit my application to the Apple Store, can it be rejected just for the simple reason of being created compatible with IOS 5 and not with IOS 6.
It’s not clear what you mean by “compatible”. One thing is the version of the SDK you link against, one thing is your Deployment Target setting and then there’s actual code compatibility regarding various API, UI and behaviour differences between iOS 5 and 6.
It seems that you have to develop with at least the iOS 6 SDK to submit your app at all.
However, your Deployment Target setting may go as low as required, so that your app still supports older iOS versions.
Your app doesn’t have to be “compatible” with iOS 6 in the sense that you tested it on iOS 6 and handled all the potential quirks that may have appeared by moving from iOS 5 to iOS 6. Of course, the user experience on iOS 6 could suffer in this case, but unless there’s a major bug, the reviewer doesn’t care.
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I'm currently designing my app and after that I will build it with Xcode 4.2. My question is what iOS version should I use - iOS4 or iOS5?
I was trying out storyboard and ARC, so it would be great to build the app with iOS5, but I don't know if it will be better to use iOS4 to reach more users?
What are your advices?
Merry XMas! :)
According to this report, about a third of users had updated to iOS 5 in October. The figure has probably increased since then and will continue to increase (especially considering the huge influx of new iOS 5 devices which will enter use after Christmas), so by the time you publish your app it is quite likely that about half of users will have iOS 5.
Whether it's worth losing about half of your potential market for the extra features which are available when developing for iOS 5 is entirely up to you. To some extent, it also depends of what the app is - if it is something targeted at people who make intensive use of their iPhone, chances are they will already have upgraded, so it shouldn't be a problem. If, on the other hand, it's something that is likely to be used by non-techsavvy people, you might be better off making it compatible with iOS 4.
I would say go for IOS 4, you can still use Arc, and StoryBoards are not the end of the world...
I would:
In Xcode, set Base SDK to Latest iOS (iOS 5.0) and set iOS Deployment Target to iOSx.xx where x.x is any version from 3 to 5. The deployment target is where you can decide what is the minimum version of iOS that your app will need in order for it to work. So the lower the number would mean you can reach more targets. Just make sure you do test your app on those versions that you set before submiting to iTunes for review.
I am a beginner Apple developer and I have some issues I would like to resolve.
First of all, I am curently working on Xcode 3.2.6 because I haven't enrolled for the developer program yet. I would like to know if Apple only accepts apps (for the App Strore) compiled on SDK 4.
Secondly, I want my apps to work both on iPhone 3 and 4. What would you advice me to do? I have read in several developer forums that in order to achieve this I have to build my application with 3.1 iOS as a target. Is this correct?
Finally, is there any problem due to the difference in resolution between iPhone 3 and iPhone 4? Which resolution do you think I should use?
Thank you in advance,
Cherry
Set Base SDK to latest (4.3).
Set Target SDK to 3.1.
Avoid features available only in iOS 3.2 or later (e.g., don't use blocks, don't frameworks introduced in iOS 3.2 or later, always check availability of methods). Later, when you get more experience with Objective-C, you may try to combine features of more modern iOS, but still keep compatibility with older iOSes.
Don't worry about resolution. It affects only images – if you want to take full advantage of Retina display, then you will need to create images for both resolutions (std. and hi-res).
P.S. I suggest you to avoid support for iOS 3.2 or earlier. iOS 4 introduces a lot of nice and helpful features. And I pretty sure, Apple will revoke support for iOS 3.x soon after iOS 5 release.
If you are aiming for iOS 3, you will end up not using the features of iOS 4, which is the majority.
This is Apple's statement.
Target the latest iOS release.
Targeting the latest release allows you to take advantage of all the features
available in the latest version of iOS. However, this approach may offer a smaller
set of users capable of installing your application on their devices because your
application cannot run on iOS releases that are earlier than the target release.`
Target an earlier iOS release.
Targeting an earlier release lets you publish your application to a larger set of
users (because your application runs on the target OS release and later releases),
but may limit the iOS features your application can use.`
But I would suggest that you target the iOS 4 as people are now targeting iOS 5, and in another 8 months, I am sure Apple would release iOS 6 (They are very quick with their updates), and I personally feel that targeting iOS 3 is not going to give you great results in the long run.
If I am creating an iPhone app, is it worth trying to make sacrifices with functionality (e.g. with MPMoviePlayer) in the application and support previous versions of the OS?
Are the majority of iPhone users running iOS 4?
Will I lose out on a big portion of the market if I only support iOS 4?
There will still be a lot of iOS 3.x users because iOS 4 cannot be installed on original iPhones and older iPod touches. And iOS 4 barely works on iPhone 3G. You can still use functionality of iOS 4 while still targeting older versions though.
I've been learning through doing user testing that a lot of people don't upgrade their apps, much less their OS. Add that to the fact that lots of devices can't run 4.0, and I think you'll limit your market if you don't support at least 3.1.x.
As to 2.x, this report says it was less than 13% 5 months ago, so it's probably safe not to support for a new app at this point.
First, you're forgetting something: You need to support 3.2 if you want your app to run on the iPad.
You don't have to "sacrifice functionality"; you just have to code your app to detect what features are available at runtime and fallback gracefully.
If your app isn't free, then the real question is "Will users who don't upgrade buy my app?", and I suspect the answer is generally no. Apparently a substantial portion of the 2.x installed base are iPod Touch users who don't want to pay for the upgrade.
The other factor is the amount of work. If you use few enough iOS 4 features that it's not much work to also make it run on 3.1.3, then supporting 3.1.3 is a no-brainer. Of course, never support an OS version you can't test.
If this is a brand new app, there's not much point in supporting older versions of the OS. It will require making sacrifices when programming the app, and over time everybody will eventually move to iOS 4.