Just wondering what will happen if the current app version supports OS 10.6.6 upwards and you upload a version that is built for Lion.
Will the 10.6 users be still able to download the version that is for 10.6 or will they be forced to upgrade to 10.7? My guess is the latter, but I'm not 100% sure.
How would you handle the jump from 10.6 to 10.7?
Apple's storefront database knows which version of OS X your app currently requires (the Deployment Target), and thus might not allow the App Store application on your Mac to update an app if the Mac on which the App Store application is running does not have a proper OS version for that app.
Any update replaces the previous version. If the new version you plan to release requires 10.7, then I strongly encourage you to disclose that information in the update so that users who plan not to upgrade right away will know not to install your update.
Related
I have looked, but I cannot get a version of Application Loader old enough to install on OSX10.5.6 . I would hate to have to buy a mac just to upload my app to the app store. I think I can install xcode 3.1 (downloading now), but I do not see anything about application loader being a part of 3.1? Any suggestions would be helpful
Right now you should already publish app that supports iOS 7...and you need at least XCode 5 for that (which means at least Mac OS X 10.8).
You really need a Mac with recent OS X. I think this policy is not really fair but it is the way it works.
after reading the apple SDK guide
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/developertools/conceptual/cross_development/Overview/overview.html
I'm still confused of how to make the mac app backward compatible & how to test them properly
I have an app, I run it and tested it on Mountain Lion 10.8 without any problem, however I want to make this app backward compatible so that other users can run it on a mac 10.6 - 10.7 machine.
I have an apple developer id and I can download the old versions of 10.7 and 10.6, but the problem is, I have a 2011 macbook air which is currently running 10.8, and that's the only apple machine that I have. Can I test the 10.7 and 10.6 by using vmware or parallels?
in my project settings, I set the target deployment to 10.6 (as I want 10.6 users to run my app), but should I set my SDK to 10.8 or 10.7? if I set the SDK to 10.8 but having the target deployment set to 10.6, if I fix all the xcode warnings will it run successfully on 10.6??
from the SDK drop down, I can only set to 10.8 or 10.7, but 10.6 is missing, how do I fix that?
thanks in advance
I develop on a 10.8 box and support back to 10.5. Just a couple of months ago we dropped 10.4 PPC support, and I'm still cleaning out some of the 10.2-specific code. This may get a little rant-y, but I've been doing old versions for a long time. I have some opinions on the matter.
No matter what Apple says in their docs, if you want to support 10.6, then build with the 10.6 SDK. Do not rely on distribution target.
I have had this discussion with the Xcode engineers, and while they hold to Apple's party line that you should always build with the latest SDK, they also acknowledge that it's generally insane to do so. If you build against the 10.8 SDK and mark your deployment target at 10.6, you will get no warnings for using methods that do not exist on 10.6. The only way you will discover that you've used a nonexistent method is that it might give you strange bugs when run on 10.6. That's insane.
Remember, OS X doesn't crash when you send an unknown selector. It just aborts the current runloop. So the bugs are even harder to track down then on iOS, where it crashes the app.
Sure, you can do weak linking. Talk about dangerous.... Yes, there are a few times this is useful, but the compiler gives you no warning if you don't do it correctly. If I'm going to do weak linking like this, I go the other way, linking against the old SDK and copying the new function's prototype into my implementation. That way I have documentation of every function I think I'm going to weak-link.
Download the old SDKs and symlink them into your Xcode distribution.
Guard them jealously. Apple will try to delete them every time you upgrade Xcode. Make your own copies and stick them in /SDKs or somewhere else away from Xcode. I provide a script called fix-xcode to manage the symlinks automatically. Am I bitter at Apple for their relentless insistance on deleting my old SDKs? Yes, I am.
You can run 10.6 Server in a VM legally. You can run 10.7+ Desktop in a VM legally. These are good ways to test your code.
Or you can do what I do and have a small pile of old MacBooks each with two or three partitions on them that you reboot all the time.
Now that 10.7 comes from App Store, it's a little harder to make VMs. My strong recommendation is to snapshot your image immediately after install, and make a clean backup copy of it. You'll want to be able to clone that image from time to time when you need to get back to a "raw" machine.
Get in the habit of squirreling away SDKs as they come out. 10.8 will be old some day. You might as well make a copy now while it's easy.
Whether you support individual dot-releases or not, it can be very helpful to keep around the upgrade packages for individual dot releases. When you encounter customers running non-current releases, it's nice to be able to check whether an "unreproducible" bug in fact is easily reproducible on their specific version. Whether this is worth it or not depends heavily on your product and customers. It was a life-saver for me when 10.4.11 made major changes to WebKit during a dot release...
Invest in a small NAS or a big external USB drive (though I've had trouble with those failing when used extensively, so I prefer a RAID). You'll need the space. You want to hold onto lots of VMs and lots of SDKs and sometimes even old versions of Xcode.
Adding to Rob Napier's great in-depth answer:
To use an old SDK, put the SDK (or a symlink) to it here:
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs
With XCode 7.3 or later, you need you to open this file and change "MinimumSDKVersion" (otherwise XCode will refuse to use the old SDK):
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Info.plist
You can install multiple versions of Mac OS on a single machine, booting between each.
The SDK should be the latest (10.8).
See 2.
One alternative to 1 that I've considered (I am in the same boat) is to create a Snow Leopard Hackintosh using an old PC and just installing Lion and Mountain Lion on my MBP.
You need to do these settings :
1.Set the Base SDK to Current version of Mac (ex. 10.7)
2.Set the Deployment SDK to older version (ex.1.4)
I created an application for the latest version of Mac OS X (Lion). My application uses ARC. I would however like it to be able to run on earlier versions of OS X.
My xcode says the earliest deployment target I can go is 10.4
By setting it to 10.4 does that mean I have done all that is required for my application to run on earlier versions of the OS up to 10.4?
Any help would be awesome thanks
There are a ton of API differences between 10.4 and Lion. Without seeing your app I cannot say for sure, but I would expect that it would not work correctly on 10.4 without some major changes. My suggestion is to forget about 10.4. I would be surprised if even 1% of OS X users are still running it. Stick with 10.6+ and you should be fine.
Whatever you do, only support versions that you have the ability to test on. If you don't have the capability to test on 10.6 you might even consider just supporting 10.7. If you cannot test on all of your deployment targets then you are setting yourself up for some pain.
ARC isn't supported for OS X 10.4 or 10.5. ARC is supported on 10.6, but has some problems that are not present on 10.7 (see question on this site). This isn't a show-stopper, but you should be aware of it if you use weak references.
According to Chitika (source), based on web traffic as of November 2011, 94% of Mac users were using 10.5 or newer and 72% were using 10.6 or newer. Those who haven't upgraded to 10.6 are less likely to be paying customers.
In my experience, developing a Mac application against an older SDK generally works without a hitch, but if you don't have access to an older system then you should warn your users that your application is untested on older systems. This is an unfortunate reality for independent developers. For example,
This application has been tested and runs on OS X 10.7. It may also run on OS X 10.6 but it has not been tested. OS X 10.5 and earlier are not supported.
To put it in perspective, OS X 10.4 was released in 2005. The last security update for it was 2009.
I've been developing for the Mac for the last 10 years, and my rule of thumb is it's usually OK to target the current OS version and only the previous one. Maybe even just the current version, if there's a compelling reason (new API) or the public knows a new OS version is coming out soon.
Example: in Spring 2012 everyone knows that OS X 10.8 will be released in the Summer, so new products I'd develop just on 10.7 with an eye towards 10.8.
There are a few markets where you'd want to do anything different (education being one), but these are few, far between, and usually only apply to long standing products.
I installed XCode 4.3 from App Store. When i run the application the xcode version is showing 4.1.
Present my mac version is Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3. Can any tell me the process how to load xcode 4.3.
Thanks in advance.
Just install it from LaunchPad.
You may have to explicitly go to the Mac Store and get this update as though it were a new download; it used to come through Apple->Software Update in the past (and I think in the future it will be a Mac Store update that you get just like any other Mac Store update), but this particular transition (4.2->4.3) is a bit more work.
I am new here and new in Xcode world.
I made a simple app with Xcode 3.2 on Snow Leopard.
The resulting built app works on snow leopard, however it will not even start on leopard (10.5.8) - I get message "You cannot use this version of application with this version of Mac OS X". Is it normal?
Or is there a way to make app that will work both on Snow Leopard and Leopard? Please advise, as I have no way to find out myself
Thanks for any input
You need to change the deployment target in your Build Settings. You should set it to the lowest version of OS X that you're willing to provide support for. You should set your base SDK to the latest available public SDK.
If you do this, you must ensure that you only use new 10.6-only APIs after doing runtime checks for their existence. To do this, you can use functions like NSClassFromString and respondsToSelector:.
Any Frameworks or libraries that are new to 10.6 should be weak-linked. This will prevent the app from trying to load those frameworks on 10.5 and thus cause the program to crash when it doesn't find the frameworks.
All explained in the SDK Compatibility Guide from Apple (Requires (free) login).