

Tell HN: All new iPhone apps and app updates submitted must support iPhone 5 - m2mapps

From Apple:
"As of May 1, all new iPhone apps and app updates submitted must support the 4-inch display on iPhone 5."
======
Samuel_Michon
This has been known for over a month[1].

I’d say it’s good change. Within 2 months of when the iPhone 5 was released,
about half of the apps I use most had received updates that optmized for the
larger screen. After 7 months though, the remaining apps still haven’t been
optimized, even though many of those apps did receive updates in the meantime.
As of May 1st, a developer can’t just post a bugfix without also optimizing
for all the different iPhone screens.

[1] [http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/21/apple-will-no-longer-
app...](http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/21/apple-will-no-longer-approve-apps-
using-unique-device-identifier-udid-beginning-may-1/)

~~~
jonknee
I don't know why it has taken this long. It should have been the case as soon
as the iPhone 5 started shipping.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "It should have been the case as soon as the iPhone 5 started shipping."

That would have been a nightmare. A lot of apps would need to redesign UI's
and create new graphics. Let's say it took 2-3 weeks to get all that created,
working, and tested. What if they had some urgent bugs they needed fixed
before then? Or developers who didn't manage to get the device on launch day
and had to wait a few weeks. Are they supposed to release updates which
include iPhone 5 support having only tested the iPhone 5 portion in the
simulator?

------
WA
Important note: This also means that you cannot release any updates that
support the iPhone 3G (iOS 4.2.1), since you cannot compile for both, iPhone 5
and 3G.

iPhone 5 requires Xcode 4.6, which doesn't allow to build apps for iOS < 4.3.

~~~
ryanpetrich
To support old versions of iOS, one can build an armv6 version using an older
version of Xcode and then lipo it to an armv7+armv7s version built with Xcode
4.6 (details: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12619124/how-to-
support-b...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12619124/how-to-support-both-
armv6-and-armv7s-for-release-build-in-xcode-4-5))

~~~
WA
Thank you, but still, this is considered more or less a hack. The question is
how long it'll take until the first apps get rejected that aren't built
"properly".

------
kennywinker
The reason this is an issue at all is that in order to support te iPhone 5
screen you must drop support for everything before iOS 4.3. Many of the apps
you see holding out are doing so because they have (or believe they have) a
significant >4.3 user base.

This got better when iOS 6 got jailbroken, but it's still an annoying forced
obsolescence. The reason they did it this way is unclear as well.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
The only devices that can’t run iOS 5 or newer are the original iPhone (2007),
iPhone 3G (2008), 1st gen iPod touch (2007), and 2nd gen iPod touch (2008).

Compared to later models, their share of the total iOS devices sold is very
low. About 30 million iPhones of the first two generations were sold. About 20
million iPods touch of the first two generations were sold. Out of 550 million
total iOS devices, that’s under 10 percent. And of course, many of those older
iPhones and iPods touch are not in use anymore.

~~~
Osmium
This is debatable of course. Even though the 3GS can technically run iOS 6
even, whether it runs it well enough to be usable is sadly another question
entirely. I do know I struggle to use my 3GS these days, though I wonder if
that's in part due to App developers assuming people are running newer
hardware as much as the OS itself...

Either way, many people with older devices choose to keep them on older OS
versions for precisely this reason, so it will be an issue for some.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
iOS 5 works great on iPhone 3G S. If you’re having performance issues, you
might want to free some space on your iPhone 3G S; that has been known to work
miracles.

~~~
Osmium
Good to know. For some reason I didn't think iOS used the disk as a memory
cache, so didn't think that would matter?

~~~
ryanpetrich
It doesn't use it to implement paging, but many things do use the disk as a
cache (URL cache, keyboard cache, icon cache, Spotlight, app-specific caches,
etc) and running low on disk space will cause the background cache cleaner
daemon to run.

