iOS 4.3 and up required for all new games?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by awp69, Nov 3, 2011.

  1. awp69

    awp69 Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2009
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    Greenville, SC
    Not a dev, but thought this would be the best place for this question.

    I've read from the dev of Sad Robot, that the latest SDK from Apple requires that games have to be built with a 4.3 iOS requirement and above.

    First of all, is this true?

    Secondly, can you still publish games with the old SDK?

    As an owner of a 2nd Gen iPod Touch, who probably won't be able to upgrade any time soon, I was just curious if Apple is forcing the hands of devs to only support iOS 4.3 and up --- thus ruling out older devices by default. 4.2.1 is the highest a 2nd Gen iPod Touch can go.
     
  2. Blackharon

    Blackharon Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2010
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    Game Designer for Ludia
    Canada
    #2 Blackharon, Nov 3, 2011
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2011
    --Edit--Things below this line are from a discussion I misunderstood -- Do not take it as truth ;) --


    I'm not the dev on our team but I we talked about that in the room here. My understanding is by default iOS 4.3 and up is required, and even just changing the setting lower doesn't lower the requirements, however there are workarounds they can do to allow the app to be used.

    But this adds dev time and more testing. Be prepared for a lot of people just to require 4.3
     
  3. ninjackid

    ninjackid Well-Known Member

    May 27, 2010
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    Oh crap. That's not good! I have a 2nd gen too!
     
  4. awp69

    awp69 Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2009
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    Curious to see how this pans out. I did a quick look at this week's releases and, surprisingly, most have requirements below 4.3 (of course, there were a few that still had newer hardware requirements but the majority of them did not).

    I don't know if these games were developed and submitted before the latest SDK came out. Or if they did a "workaround" as Blackharon suggested.

    If they were submitted before the new SDK, but all newly developed games require the new SDK then, yes, it could spell the end of days for older devices. Obviously graphic intensive games that use the Unreal engine or just clearly too memory hogging for older devices, I understand the hardware limitations.

    But if Apple forces apps, regardless of how complex they are, to only be published under the new SDK and 4.3, that's sad news. Yes, technology moves on, but if there's no real reason for requiring 4.3 then that's kind of saying that Apple wants to force people to upgrade.

    They already have sort of dropped support by no longer giving iOS upgrades to older devices. But I don't think it's right to force devs to give up sales by leaving those who can't afford to upgrade in the dust.
     
  5. Blackharon

    Blackharon Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2010
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    Game Designer for Ludia
    Canada
    I talked further - there's a tonne of confusion on the subject. According to my team you can still target any iOS version (fairly easily) however the simulator will only test with iOS 5 or iOS 4.3
     
  6. awp69

    awp69 Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2009
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    Thanks. A dev also mentioned in another thread that Apple doesn't require the use of the new SDK. It's only if developers want to use all the new features like the iCloud, etc.

    So maybe there still will be a bit of life left for us geezers with old hardware.
     
  7. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    havent updated to the latest xcode &sdk yet but it would be weird if the lowest deployment target would be now 4.3 ... for eons it was 3.0 .. would be really weird if that changed..
     
  8. mikeg123

    mikeg123 Well-Known Member

    Sep 23, 2009
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    I was the one that mentioned that, so maybe I should clarify a few things, considering I haven't actually released an app, yet. :)

    It does appear that Apple is trying to do away with older versions, but I don't see that they aren't allowing it. I'm running Xcode4 + SDK 5.0, and I set the deployment target to 4.0. In addition, I had to play with some architecture settings, as Apple doesn't add armv6 by default. But once those were set, we were able to get our program running on an older iPod running 4.2.1. So I can only assume that Apple will still allow that. I hope so, as we plan on supporting older devices! Xcode 4 allows for you to set the deployment target all the way down to 3.0.

    Apple is definitely doing there part to make it more difficult to support older versions. You can still get Xcode 3 and SDK 4.3. However, Xcode 3 is incompatible with OS X Lion and SDK 5.0. So if you move to Lion, or wish to support iOS 5, then you are forced to move to Xcode 4 and SDK 5.0.

    That shouldn't prevent anyone from building for older hardware, the shift is headed in that direction. I'm definitely no pro at this stuff, but those are my current observations.
     

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