Support for older iOS versions

Question

Is there an elegant way to “cut off” support for older versions of the iOS operating system? When I first published my application, the current version of iOS was in the 3.x range. Over time, the release of updates that support iOS 3.0 continues, and the integration of new features found in 4.0 becomes more and more time-consuming. However, I do not see the way that iTunes or any iDevice will efficiently handle this for existing users.

Should I just download the update, set the minimum iOS to 4.0 (or whatever I choose) and move around?

Answer 1

Most users have already upgraded to iOS 4.x, but there are still a few on iOS 3.x. If you leave them, you’ll probably bring a couple of bad reviews of the App Store (since they won’t be able to update, and even worse: if they delete the application, they won’t be able to download the latest compatibility version 3.x of your application), but sometimes it's worth it.

And yes, you need to download the version that was created with the "iOS Deployment Target" installed in iOS 4.0.

Answer 2

There is not a very elegant way, but, fortunately, most users have switched to at least OS 4.

The best thing you can do is to give a lot of comments in the notes for updating the applications, telling users that “the next update will be only 4.0+” or “this is the final version of 3.x support, please do it if you need it ... "

Communication is the key.

Answer 3

A few days before Apple released iOS 7, they began supporting downloads of older versions of your application . From the article:

For example, a user running iOS 5 can now download an application that supports this version of iOS for the first time, even if the latest version of the application is ready for iOS 7. This step, which was highlighted on Reddit, is significant, as it will give those who don’t updated its iPad, iPhone, or iPod to the latest iOS access to much more applications.

So, if I were you, I would do another update to support older iOS devices for the last time before moving on to them and setting the deployment goal to a higher version of iOS.

Strange, I don’t think we can go back and update an older version of our application. So, if we have an application 1.0 that supports up to iOS 5, then App 1.1 only supports iOS 7 and above, there is no way to publish update 1.0.1 to fix critical errors for users of iOS 5.

That's why I said that I was updating it for the last time before attacking the deployment target. Maybe wait a few weeks and see if your last update has any critical errors.