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  1. POWhen will Apple start rejecting apps built with Xcode 4.x?
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    <p><strong>Update</strong></p> <p>On december 17, 2013, <a href="https://developer.apple.com/news/index.php?id=12172013a" rel="noreferrer">Apple has issued a statement</a> about when they will be forcing everyone to submit new apps with Xcode 5:</p> <blockquote> <p>"Starting February 1, new apps and app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the latest version of Xcode 5 and must be optimized for iOS 7."</p> </blockquote> <p>iOS 7 was originally <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_7" rel="noreferrer">announced on June 10, 2013</a>, with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode#Version_history" rel="noreferrer">Xcode 5.x being released on October 22, 2013</a>. This spans a time frame of close to eight months between announcing iOS 7 and enforcing Xcode 5 submissions, with the release of Xcode pretty nicely in the middle.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Original question</strong></p> <p>Apps that are built with Xcode 4.x (targeting the iOS 6.x SDK's) will run on <em>iOS 7</em> in a kind of legacy-mode, emulating features like the black status bars, old UISwitch appearances etc. I don't know if this mode is documented somewhere with another name or maybe is not discussed due to NDA-restrictions, but I can't find any details about it (upvotes for the canonically accepted name of this mode).</p> <p>If you compile the same app without any modifications from Xcode 5, it gets compiled as a first class iOS 7 citizen, with the new status bar appearance and controls. In fact, I <em>can't find any way in Xcode 5</em> to have the app launch in legacy-mode (I'll upvote comments for any non-NDA-violating hints on this, but the real question is about something else).</p> <p>The app I'm currently working on works in this legacy-mode, but will crash when compiled with Xcode 5, due to very old iOS 4.x code. This can be addressed of course, but with a short deadline the client has asked me to <em>not</em> address it, focussing on a set of features first, and only after that updating the project to be a 'real' iOS 7 app.</p> <p>When weighing all the rumors and experiences in past years, the <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2013/08/10/apple-to-unveil-next-generation-iphone-on-september-10/" rel="noreferrer">iOS 7 launch is supposedly imminent</a>. It is absolutely vital that the updates I'm currently working on are submitted to the App Store as an iOS 6 update. To my current knowledge, this means the app has to be built with Xcode 4, inherently with the base SDK set tot iOS 6.x (or iphoneos6.1 as it's called in the build settings). </p> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/LISDN.png" alt="http://i.stack.imgur.com/LISDN.png"></p> <p>I'm assuming Apple will at some point around the launch of iOS 7 start rejecting apps that were built with Xcode 4 and the iOS 6 SDK, in order to push the adoption of real iOS 7 apps, phasing out the necessity of the legacy mode. With this I'm hoping to aim for an iOS 6 app submission before they start rejecting 'old school' apps, but I have no real intel on when this might be.</p> <p><strong>So here comes the real question:</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>Are there examples of cases like these with prior iOS releases, that Apple started rejecting apps built with older Xcodes or SDK's? The time frame between the release of an iOS version and when Apple rejects apps is what I'm most interested in.</p> </blockquote> <p>P.S. Here's a forum post that seemed to indicate this happening around the launch of iOS 6, but the very last post devalues it: <a href="http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forums/topic/apple-dev-support-says-all-apps-must-now-be-built-with-ios-6-sdk" rel="noreferrer">http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forums/topic/apple-dev-support-says-all-apps-must-now-be-built-with-ios-6-sdk</a></p> <p>P.P.S There's also the date when Apple started rejecting non iPhone5-optimized apps, but that had nothing to do with an SDK change, let alone a major version change like 6 to 7: <a href="http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/03/21/after-a-year-of-warnings-apple-will-no-longer-accept-any-apps-that-use-udids-as-of-may-1st/" rel="noreferrer">http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/03/21/after-a-year-of-warnings-apple-will-no-longer-accept-any-apps-that-use-udids-as-of-may-1st/</a></p>
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