I have heard that iOS 11 will support only 64 bit apps.
But I don't quite understand because my iPhone 5 does not have a 64 bit cpu so how will it work?
If an iPhone5 can't run 64 bit apps, and Apple say they will refuse new 32 bit app in the app store starting in January 2018, how can I continue to maintain my app for my iPhone 5 users after 2018 ?
The iPhone 5S has an A7 chip. This is a 64 bit CPU, which is why it can run iOS 11. An iPhone 5, however, cannot be upgraded past iOS 10.
You will still be able to submit apps containing both 32 bit and 64 bit slices and, so as long as the minimum iOS requirement of your app is < iOS 11 the app will still run on an iPhone 5
You can no longer submit 32 bit only binaries. Older, 32 bit only, apps give a warning in iOS 10 and will not run in iOS 11.
After January 2018 you cannot submit a 32 bit app to the mac app store
Related
According to Apple News Starting April 2020, all new apps and app updates will need to be built with the iOS 13 SDK and support the all-screen design of iPhone XS Max or later.
I have an app that runs on Xcode 10 and Swift 4, but it is not live on the App Store yet and is just available on Testflight.
My doubt is whether I need to update to iOS 13 even if I just upload
the app to Testflight and not make it live on the Store?
As we know, with iOS 11, apple will drop support for 32 bit applications.
This mean, that all application on new iOS need to be 64 bit.
I also understand, that (for some time now) developers need to upload 64 bit application on store.
My question is for older devices with 32 bit processor, that will stuck with older iOS (like 10.3), will that get apps updates?
My question is, when we developers upload 64 bit application, now on apple side is converted to 32 bit and can be run on 32 bit devices. Will this continue, or is apple removing all updates for 32 bit applications, and all old devices would stuck with old applications?
Currently iOS 10 supports both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries. Come iOS 11 only 64-bit binaries will be accepted.
We need to figure out how many of our users are currently running on 32-bit hardware, however iTunesConnect Analytics doesn't break down the devices by:
Device Model, or
CPU Architecture
The only breakdowns are by device family or iOS version. This isn't granular enough.
An "iPhone" device family could be iPhone 5c or iPhone 6. The former is 32-bit, the latter is 64-bit.
Similarly, an "iOS version 10" metric could be iPhone 5c or iPhone 6. The former is 32-bit, the latter is 64-bit.
How can we identify currently active devices that are on 32-bit architecture and would become obsolete?
Update:
To reiterate, as this keeps coming up: we are looking into a way to determine this using Apple's Analytics or other developer tools.
Obviously integrating a 3rd party SDK or even our own code to detect and report is easy enough, but a little late in the game.
In this answer I will address the root question which is: "How do I determine how many 32-bit device users I will lose when Apple bans 32bit apps from the App Store for the iOS 11 release?"
As anticipated in the comments, Apple has NOT banned 32bit apps from the App Store as of Sept 23, 2017. Instead, they have continued to support 32bit apps in the App Store for older devices. The only requirement at this time for apps is that they must support 64bit as well.
This is because the requirements for iOS 11 and for the App Store are independent sets of requirements.
I have been able to confirm this by viewing the available updates for my 32bit iPad 2 running iOS 9.3 (see below). I can confirm that the apps do run (though rather slowly due to the old hardware).
While this issue is not currently a concern, I would keep an eye on Apple's Developer News and Updates page for future changes in app submission requirements.
So with Apple forcing new apps to support 64 bit, support for iPhone 5 will be completely dropped.
I do know that iPhone 5 can't support 64 bit apps however right now all apps run fine on iPhone 5.
As a developer, I just write my app and I never check a box that converts it to 64. Do all new apps support both 32 and 64 by default? Do I need to take extra steps to support 32 bit?
I'm pretty confused. Sorry if it's a silly question.
Yes - every app has 32 and 64 runtimes inside so it can run on both architectures.
You won't be able to send app to the AppStore with very old Xcode versions anyway. It's about devices - iPhone 5 has 32bit architecture. They dropped 32bit so in the future they may remove 32bit runtimes to reduce app size. For now it's an excuse for abandoning old devices.
I have a couple of questions about an app that is currently compatible for iOS7 and above that I am looking to cut iOS 7 support for. I would like to know:
What happens to our users that already have the app installed on their iOS 7 device? Will they just not be able to update the app or will it update and stop working for them? If so will they see an annoying red notification number above the App Store icon that they will not be able to get rid of?
For new users what message will an iOS 7 user get when they try and download our app? Or will they just not see the app on the app store when they search for it?
Is the community cutting iOS 7 support yet? Apple says only 8% of App Store users have an operating system earlier than iOS 8 (https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/) but I would like to know the general communities current thoughts on this.
Installed apps will still run, but not update.
As XCode 7 doesn't support iOS 7 simulators anymore, really testing for iOS 7 is getting increasingly difficult - and releasing a version that does not work correct for iOS 7 is worse than just letting people use their (still working) old version.
I would look at your own user base, some apps tend to have users with more older iOS versions than others. My apps have < 5% iOS 7, so I'll be dropping iOS 7 from now on.