Hey Guys, which iPhone SDK version should we be compiling for when we submit? I was thinking 2.2.1 since we want it to be available on those who didn’t want to pay for the 3.0 upgrade and we do not use any 3.0 features… my only hesitation is the fact that I read an article saying that apple will reject apps not using a base SDK version of 3.0 or greater.
Is this true? What version should we compile for considering we don’t use any of the 3.0 features?
I’ve built all my apps and games to OS 2.0 so far - including some submitted in the past month or so.
Why exclude potential customers who haven’t upgraded their device if you don’t have to?
You should of course, make sure you test your app/game on devices running multiple OS versions including 3.n though.
The decision comes down to trade-offs. You have to ask: am I going to be doing a ton more work or lose features if I support older OS versions? You then have to weigh that against the market share of the OS in question.
Ideally you want to support as many customers as possible but at some point that last 2% of customers may not be worth 30% of dev time or may not be worth the loss of a major piece of functionality. If no feature or extra dev time is impacted, then go as low as you can. It’s just not a simple cut and dry issue though. The situation will be unique for every application and developer.
The counter question is: Why would I want to make it accessable to anyone who ever has jailbroken his device if you can reduce the amount of illegal users by using more current OS?
For security reasons I actually expect Apple to drop approval for pre 2.2.1 apps somewhen soonish and the approval of 2.2.1 apps at latest with the OS 4.0 release.
Because its a fact that they can’t rethink the security as long as they allow the 2.0 apps to run.
I personally don’t build anything below 2.2.1.
2.2.1 is free for any 2.x user and anyone beeing active on the store likely has it anyway already. Those who don’t have at least 2.2.1 are not active enough on the store to be realistically considered to be “target userbase” (aside of the fact that 2.2.1+ makes over 9x% of the market anyway)