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I'm working with iOS developers overseas. I'm not an iOS developer myself.

I currently have an iOS app posted and available in the app store.

I had some work done recently to make a few changes to the app and now my developers are telling me:

"We can't upload the app because it's not archiving since our current project version doesn't have the latest Swift version".

Is this a real problem?

Their solution to this is that a lot of new work needs to be done which will be very expensive, but I'm skeptical that this is even a real problem.

Shouldn't I be able to upload changes to an app without the app having the "latest Swift version"?

Sparky Johnson
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  • Apple does require you to use new tools when uploading to the App Store, but unless it has been 4 or 5 years since you submitted your app I wouldn't think the work required would be that significant. How long ago was the current version developed? Swift versions update every year, but updates to the language since Swift 3 (Current version is Swift 5) have not been particularly disruptive. – Paulw11 Mar 31 '22 at 19:46
  • The current version was uploaded 4 months ago. The project is a branch from an open source project that is 1.5-2 years old – Sparky Johnson Mar 31 '22 at 19:49
  • Then it seems unlikely that significant work would be required just to work with Xcode 13. Xcode includes an automatic tool that can make required changes to update the Swift compatibility of a project. It can be a bit hit-and-miss, but for a project that was updated recently it would probably do most of the work. – Paulw11 Mar 31 '22 at 20:20
  • Is it possible to upload the app without Xcode 13? I think that last time the app was uploaded it was using the previous version of Xcode. My developers told me that "when we updated the Swift version the app has lots of crashing and error problems". Which therefore it would be easier to take the current version of the open source project and start over with our customizations (expensive) instead of fixing the bugs related to the new Swift version ourselves – Sparky Johnson Mar 31 '22 at 20:26
  • Only for another 25 days - https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=2t1chhp3 – Paulw11 Mar 31 '22 at 20:27
  • Could we also use the "old version of Swift" to publish the app? Why do we need to have the latest version of Swift? – Sparky Johnson Mar 31 '22 at 20:27
  • Yes, you can use older Swift versions. It depends on what is causing the crashes and errors. Generally I wouldn't expect well written code to have significant problems just from updating Swift/Xcode. – Paulw11 Mar 31 '22 at 20:29
  • @SparkyJohnson - take a look at: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56894082/how-to-change-swift-version-from-5-to-4-in-xcode ... then, review your contract with your developers and see if you agreed to pay them for code that would only work for a short time. – DonMag Mar 31 '22 at 20:30
  • Okay thank you for all this information, I really appreciate it. So to summarize, even while using Xcode 13, we could use an old version of Swift and update the app/archive it and have the updates published on the app store? – Sparky Johnson Mar 31 '22 at 20:31
  • Yes, but just be aware that you may be accruing what is called "tech debt" - You are potentially just delaying something that will need to be done eventually. However I am suspicious of a vague statement about "lots of crashing and errors" and a desire to just start again; either they don't want to work on the problems directly or their original modifications were not done in a sustainable manner. – Paulw11 Mar 31 '22 at 20:35
  • @SparkyJohnson - I can't tell you what Apple may or may not approve. Just pointing you to some information. – DonMag Mar 31 '22 at 20:37
  • I don't know how big your app is, but I built a whole dating app in 2018 and it took me 30mins in 2021 to bring it up to date. Can't speak for the Xcode 13 Appstore upload side, but code compliance to the latest Swift isn't as hard as they're making out. – elarcoiris Apr 01 '22 at 01:40

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