App Compatibility (iOS & Device)

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13" MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz 8 GB Ram 250 GB HD, iPhone 4/S 64 GB, iPhone 3GS 16 GB, iPad 16 GB Wi-Fi
how many old versions should my app be compatible with?

so far im thinking just iOS5, and iOS6, since I've read that close to 90% of all iOS users update their devices.


and when iOS7 comes out, for future apps and versions should i let the app be backwards compatible with iOS5? given that the original iPad and iPhone 3G is going to be stuck with iOS5.

does people know how the percentage of people using older devices? how long will i have to be able to support these older devices and OS?
 
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I Agree with your thoughts, I myself tend to support the newest two versions of iOS, and the latest two devices.

Yes it could be argued that there are still a lot of iPhones 3 & 3GS devices out there, but Apple device users do tend to upgrade every couple of years, also there are a lot of apps already available for the iPhone 3 in the App Store.

Also it takes a lot more code and graphic resources to support the older and newer devices, for example if you want to support iPhone 3 4 & 5 you need six different sizes or resolution of Icon Image, and three different sizes of opening splash screen images.

Also because of the different screen resolutions if you are working on game apps, or highly graphical apps, then you would need a lot more code to reposition your game sprites and images to take account of the different screen resolutions.

Lastly Apple seems to be depricating framework functions and class methods, with every new version of iOS, which means you have to check the device type and run different code sections for the different iOS versions and device types, so all of this is one good reason to start targeting your apps at the most recent devices.

All that said, its a hard choice to make, the more devices you can target the bigger your customer base.

Regards Mark
 

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