Hacker News Reader

Comment by sergeo | Hacker News Reader

The idea that Xcode 4.5 is required for iPhone 5 development is incorrect. If iOS3-4 & ARM6 support is needed, Xcode 4.4 could be used (at least for now) to build iOS3-5 apps. The trigger to make an app use full iPhone5 screen is to include Default-568h@2x.png into the project. Of course, you'll need to modify screens to adjust layout depending on screen size.

Having said that, Apple typically pushes everyone to upgrade to the latest Xcode, and OS/X, so I'd expect that Xcode 4.5 will be required rather sooner than later. IMHO, this is a good thing in the long run, better than supporting multiple generations of hardware and software - it's better for the ecosystem. Even though about 8% of our users are on <iOS4.3, we would be fine when Apple drops them - they would provide us more users on iOS6+.

View on HN

> Even though about 8% of our users are on <iOS4.3, we would be fine when Apple drops them

I see that this is a no-brainer for new apps.

But anyone writing (typically free) iOS apps as a service will have a hard time telling their clients "this is your app maintainer, I'll lock 8% of your existing users out, ok?".

This is a huge PITA in the making. :(

> The trigger to make an app use full iPhone5 screen is to include Default-568h@2x.png into the project.

Have you tested that without using the new SDK, or is that a theory? The Default-568h@2x.png might be required-but-not-sufficient.

Yes, it's been confirmed to be sufficient.

As an additional evidence, one of our apps that included this file received "required screenshot is missing" iTunes Connect status upon update upload today, and it had all regular screenshots, but not iPhone5 ones.

Do you know how to run Xcode 4.4-compiled binary in Xcode 4.5's iPhone simulator?

Okay, I was able to confirm sergeo's statement. Here's what I did:

1.) I compiled my app with a 4-inch default image using XCode 4.4.1 with iOS 5.1 as the base SDK and ran the app in Xcode 4.4.1's iOS simulator.

2.) I copied the resulting i386 app folder from /Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.1/Applications/[app uuid] to /Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.0/Applications/

3.) I started XCode 4.5's iOS Simulator and ran my app from Spring Board.

The result? It did work. I was able to see my Xcode 4.4.1-compiled app in 4-inch display mode.

I can't say for sure if this will work on the iPhone 5 hardware, but I'd bet the answer is yes.

I guess with this finding, if you're not using any iOS 6.0 features, it may be better to continue to compile your app using Xcode 4.4.1 since that lets you more easily produce app with armv6 support.

With the iPad3 launch, existing applications would not use retina graphics even if they included them. They had to be re-linked with the latest SDK.

Apple has a long history of doing `linked-on-or-after` checks for compatibility with various older paradigms or iOS versions. As such, I don't think throwing a screenshot into a directory will make the app actually run at full size. It might mollify iTunes Connect, but mollifying iTunes Connect is just one facet of shipping an app: the runtime is a completely different animal.

This is even a difficult condition to test, as installing an app in the 6.0 simulator without rebuilding it for the 6.0 simulator and thus passing the linked-on-or-after checks (and as such, with Xcode 4.5) is nigh-unto impossible, as the 6.0 simulator does not quite predate Xcode 4.5 as the beta versions could very well fall under the "or after" part of the link condition.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com