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I have read the following resources regarding iOS compatibility configuration:

They all cover a more commonly sought after question of backward compatibility, but what I'm looking for is to prevent my app from being installed on an incompatible later iOS.

So, for example, I want my app to run on iOS 3.2-5.0, but not iOS 5.1. How can I achieve this? Is this even possible?

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William Niu
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    I have to ask... why on earth would you want to do this, and presumably you are not expecting this to be approved for the app store? – jrturton Apr 03 '12 at 07:33
  • As I said, this is not a common case, but it is a case. E.g. one may want to concentrate on a major, new version of app down the line, instead of spending more development on fixing the bug that cropped up for the latest iOS. – William Niu Apr 03 '12 at 07:40
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    Out of curiosity: does this have something to do with Apple banning calls to settings app via URL? Anyhow: +1, i belive more and more people will be intereted to know the answer on this one. Sadly. – Rok Jarc Apr 03 '12 at 07:41

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Unfortunately, isn't actually possible. iOS and the App Store doesn't allow for this type of setting.

The only 2 reasons you might have to stop an application from working on the newest OS would be either because you've found a bug in your application which only shows up in the newer OS, which Apple would say "is your fault, so correct your app" or because it reveals that there is a bug in a recent version of the OS.

Good old Apple being Apple, they aren't very good at admitting they have bugs in their software. Their assumption is their newest OS has no bugs that weren't in older OS's, and you can't hold your apps from the new OS.

Technically, these would be the only times that you should do so. While Apple does deprecate some things, so far Apple has not explicitly changed the API and stopped things from working deliberately. Deprecations haven't turned into deletions yet (though in some cases I'm sure they should have...) I'd expect that if this ever changes, Apple will provide the option to flag your app as incompatible with a new OS, either that or make it so your app needs to be "certified" to work on the New "clean" OS prior to working.

thebarcodeproject
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