I am about to submit an iPhone app to Apple for the first time. I was wondering: if they find a bug only in iOS 3.0 (for example) would they allow you to release only for iOS 4.0 (and above) even though you targeted 3.0 and above?
Likewise, if you have targeted the original iPhone device, but there is a bug found when your app is run on it, but not on any of the other devices, will they allow you to release for those?
Or is the answer to the above "NO. You have to debug, resubmit and wait yet another month".
Thanks!
No; if you set your deployment target to 3.0 and it doesn't work on 3.0 and above, then your app should and probably will be rejected. Your only option is to either thoroughly test on older OS versions, or raise your app's deployment target to a version which you're confident your app will work on.
You can change the deployment target to any version you want as minimal requirement... so if your app requires 4.0 or 4.2 you can set this and it won't have to run on old devices.
On the other side your app has to run without crashes on actual 4.3 devices.. you can't submit an application that only runs on old devices.
If you change the deployment target you have to recompile and resubmit.
Related
I have developed my app in Xcode 4.1 and iOS SDK version(Base SDK Version) is iOS 4.3 So, will this app run on iPhone with iOS 5 and/or iOS 6 or not?
I think the app can be run on a higher version of the OS than the Deployment Target. Is this right? I appreciate any help.
Yes, your app will run on anything that is iOS 4.3 or newer. That is, assuming you aren't using any depreciated methods that are removed from a future iOS release. You can check if things have been depreciated/removed through the documentation.
It doesn't matter with which Xcode you build your app, the base SDK signifies the lowest system your app is supporting.
You app can and will run on newer systems.
If you want to make an update to your app, you'll need to pay attention to depreciated methods for the newer systems or you will get rejected and won't be able to update in the App Store.
Yes, it will for sure run in higher versions than Deployment Target.
However, is always recommended to run also in newer versions as they are released, to check that every API used is still running fine (specially if they were deprecated).
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 submitted my first app last week (yay) and accidentally left the target as 4.3 which really limits who can download the app. I submitted an update that targeted 3.0, which was approved and is on the app store now. The binaries say 3.0, the requirements say 3.0, yet when I install it on a device without 4.3 it still says "This application requires iOS 4.3. You must update to iOS 4.3 in order to download and use this application."
Whats going on here? Any help would be awesome.
I would suspect that you set the deployment target to 3.0 in your project and still have the 4.3 (or latest) setting in your target, which is more specific than the project's setting and overrides it.
I had the same problem with an app (4.2.1 compatible, previously only 4.3+) that hit the App Store last night and wouldn't install on a 4.2.1 device until this morning. Interestingly though, the new binary was most definitely on the store since it installed on an iOS 5 device and had new features bundled with the new build.
I assume there's some separate versioning server or something that isn't synchronized with the download servers, because it does seem to lag for several hours.
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.