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Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

developer.apple.com

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Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#11

Post by ben1040 »

seiji wrote: post #10
andrewgjohnson wrote: post #4

I think the lack of definition of "iOS 7 optimized" is what is confusing to those of us who haven't developed apps on iOS.

Basic guidelines of "no using the old UI widgets (grey keyboard, old tabs, old back arrows)" and, old by now, supporting iPhone 4 and iPhone 5+ screen sizes with optimized graphics. Same goes for iPad except there's only one resolution to support even though it comes in two resolutions across two sizes.

>old by now, supporting iPhone 4 and iPhone 5+ screen sizes with optimized graphics

Yep. Starting from May of 2013, they will reject any app that letterboxes on an iPhone 5.

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#12

Post by micampe »

andrewgjohnson wrote: post #4

I think the lack of definition of "iOS 7 optimized" is what is confusing to those of us who haven't developed apps on iOS.

The only apps I have that have not been updated are Google's and the only annoying thing is that they use the old keyboard, which looks bad now.

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#13

Post by tonyhb »

andrewgjohnson wrote: post #4

I think the lack of definition of "iOS 7 optimized" is what is confusing to those of us who haven't developed apps on iOS.

Yeah, I was thinking that as a web/java developer I don't understand what this means.

Does this mean that, essentially, we only build for iOS 7 onwards?

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#14

Post by klaustopher »

nwh wrote: post #5
kevingadd wrote: post #2

Doesn't requiring the new build pipeline plus 'optimized for iOS 7', mean you can't support most older iOS devices anymore? I know that is how the build pipeline stuff worked for desktop OS X apps - they tended to deprecate the ability to build for older OS versions when you installed the latest rev of XCode. If so, how far back does it go? Like, if I compile an iOS7 optimized app, will it work on iOS6 devices? What…

Users can now install older versions that are compatible, but you can't update them anymore once you go past that point.

Any sources for that? I stil haven't fount any info if you can update old versions of your app

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#15

Post by VLM »

The original ipad can only be upgraded to iOS 5.1.1, I think.

There are a couple implications. First of all schools (like where my kids go) that bit the apple and deployed ipads to all the kids can't install or upgrade software after February. So if you're selling apps to kids, get your profits while you can. After february if they spend all their budget on upgrading ipads to the latest hardware so they could eventually install apps, they're not going to have any money to spend on apps, so that is a double whammy on sales. Something tells me no one told the accountants and administrators that the depreciation period was so short; much like elementary schools reuse textbooks for 20 years I think they were a wee bit optimistic about ipad usable lifespan.

Another implication is if you have a use case for app-less (web based) ipads, the market is probably going to absolutely flood in a couple months with cheap ipads that can't run modern native apps. So if you're trying to develop an ipad app for cheap people, the wise choice at this time would be web based not native. Also a web based solution could be sold to android users or desktop users or whatever.

The TLDR is native iOS apps are going to die pretty soon. Which is too bad, it was an interesting technological idea.

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#16

Post by jwr »

iOS 7 is the first Apple system where I felt royally screwed. My iPhone 4 became so slow as to be nearly unusable. Everything now takes seconds, swipes are being missed, even audio gets chopped up when I play back podcasts over bluetooth.

There are two reasons for me to be angry about this:

* Apple should never have released iOS 7 for iPhone 4 devices. iPhone 4 should have been listed as "unsupported". But had they done that, they would have ended up with a fragmented ecosystem, and unable to brag about how so-and-so-many percent of users upgraded to the latest iOS.

* There is no good reason for iOS 7 to be slower than iOS 6. The "it requires more processing power for animations" reason is bogus, because there are very few animated effects, and I switched off whatever I could anyway. The only reason every iOS release is slower than the previous one is because Apple does not care about optimizations. They can afford not to care because every new hardware device is much faster than the previous one. But that means some users get royally screwed.

I should have stayed with iOS 6 (there is no going back now), but more importantly, Apple should not have claimed that iOS 7 is supported on my device. For all practical purposes, it isn't — the experience is really bad. I've just compared it to an iPhone 3G running iOS 4.2.1, it's more responsive than iOS 7 on iPhone 4.

So, this forced migration to iOS 7 is something that makes me angry, because I'm that part of the userbase than is being dragged into it kicking and screaming.

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#17

Post by ryanpetrich »

coob wrote: post #6
kevingadd wrote: post #2

Doesn't requiring the new build pipeline plus 'optimized for iOS 7', mean you can't support most older iOS devices anymore? I know that is how the build pipeline stuff worked for desktop OS X apps - they tended to deprecate the ability to build for older OS versions when you installed the latest rev of XCode. If so, how far back does it go? Like, if I compile an iOS7 optimized app, will it work on iOS6 devices? What…

No, you can build against the iOS 7 SDK and still support older versions of iOS. With Xcode 5 you can only build against iOS 7. You can also have entirely separate functionality for different OS versions in the same app bundle. I've never tried it, but as far as I'm ware, you could theoretically build agains iOS 7 and have the app run on iOS 2.0, assuming the App Store still works.

Deployment targets earlier than 4.3 require armv6 libraries to support all devices, which Apple no longer ships. One can build an armv6 slice using an older toolchain and lipo it with armv7/armv7s slices built against 7.0, but it's not clear if Apple will accept such binaries as App Store submissions.

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#18

Post by nwh »

klaustopher wrote: post #14
nwh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users can now install older versions that are compatible, but you can't update them anymore once you go past that point.

Any sources for that? I stil haven't fount any info if you can update old versions of your app

Just experience. If you try and download an iOS7-only app on iOS6 you get an option to download a previous version.

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#19

Post by jbrooksuk »

jwr wrote: post #16

iOS 7 is the first Apple system where I felt royally screwed. My iPhone 4 became so slow as to be nearly unusable. Everything now takes seconds, swipes are being missed, even audio gets chopped up when I play back podcasts over bluetooth. There are two reasons for me to be angry about this: * Apple should never have released iOS 7 for iPhone 4 devices. iPhone 4 should have been listed as "unsupported". But had they d…

Have you tried http://downgradeios7.com/? I don't know if it really works, but I've heard that people have had luck going backwards — not sure how though.

Re: Starting Feb 1, new apps and app updates must be optimized for iOS 7

#20

Post by ronaldx »

Worth noting that first generation iPad, the current model until March 2011, will only run iOS 5.1.1 and has essentially been obsoleted by now.

Yes, it is theoretically possible to support earlier versions but Apple makes it practically very awkward: around half of the top apps don't support iOS 5. Apple's own apps apparently don't support iOS 6.

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