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As you probably know, Apple announces two news:

I've a question about the first one. So we have an application which is built with iOS3.2 as a minimum deployment target and with armv6 support. The reason for this because many user still has an iPhone 3G, so we need support for armv6. But because of this announcement, we have to drop armv6 support and use iOS6 SDK (with iOS4.3 min deployment target) to properly build the app with the 4 cols launch image.

I was reading and searching a lot about this topic and I found these:

Currently we have armv6 support. You can't drop it, you can just set the minimum os version to 4.3. But with XCode 4.5 you can't built for armv6 architecture, so this slice will missing from the app. That's why Apple won't accept your app at next upload, because you limit the supported list of devices. But if you use older XCode, you can't add the big launch image for supporting iPhone5 full screen mode. The main point is the missing armv6 slice. Someone told that Apple can detect this, and if your app contains such slice, it will be rejected after May 1. But you can't update your existing app with armv6 support, because you can't built for that.

I also read that you can combine apps built with XCode 4.x and 4.5 to support all architectures, but this is too risky for us if Apple will accept this after May 1.

So is it true that all developer whose app is still supporting armv6 must have to upload a new app to App Store with different app id? Or is there any other solution that updates after May 1 will arrive in the right manner to all current user?

Thanks madik

pnuts
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madik
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  • No, I wrote that too, I know there are such solutions. My question is that, will Apple accept an app update if it will contains armv6 slice? I know or it may be currently they accept such binaries, but what will be the situation after May 1? We need exact answers to forward them to our customers... – madik Mar 28 '13 at 13:46

2 Answers2

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There's nothing wrong with removing support for a previously-supported architecture once it's out of date, as is the case here. You will not be able to release any more updates for these users though, and that's just all there is to it.

What you can't do is remove support for a device group. That is, you can't have a universal app and later remove support for iPad, for example.

Ed Marty
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  • So you claim that after May 1 I switch to XCode 4.5 with iOS6.x SDK, build the app without armv6 and I will manage to upload the app? – madik Mar 28 '13 at 13:42
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There is no point in supporting armv6 devices or OS < 5.0 any more. This market is extremely limited unless your product is targeted at countries where buying new devices is uncommon. In most major markets the effort to support ancient iOS devices is not worth it. We only support 5.x and armv7 devices for new app versions.

ahwulf
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  • As I mentioned, we have many users with iPhone 3G. This is not our decision, the market is given. But of course because of this announcement after May 1 we can't publish app updates for these devices. – madik Mar 28 '13 at 13:40
  • And you're wrong with minimum iOS version, this is 4.3, not 5.0 – madik Mar 28 '13 at 13:45
  • Our mobile web site sees less than 4% of iOS versions below 5.0. 10% version 5 and 86% version 6. – ahwulf Mar 28 '13 at 14:25
  • In this question still not the iOS version popularity is the point. – madik Mar 28 '13 at 14:33
  • THe only point is to make a decision based on tracking your actual users but clearly Apple is no longer interested in the old devices after May 1. – ahwulf Mar 28 '13 at 14:38
  • The decision was already made by Apple. The only question is still that, if I build the app with XCode 4.5 and armv6 will missing from the new build, will Apple accept the update? Or if I merge an app built with old and new XCode, so will contain armv6, what will be the result? – madik Mar 28 '13 at 15:24