CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iossdkversion
pdrcabrod
pdrcabrod

Reputation: 1477

How can iOS run apps built with previous SDK versions?

I have a question (actually 2 =P) regarding iOS versions and SDK versions.

Imagine I built an app with SDK 7, so I used the api defined for that version. This app will run in newer iOSs, for example iOS8.

Imagina also I used the method in my app

  1. Will - doSomething run different code depending on the operating system? I mean, if a run the app on a device with iOS 7 and on a device with iOS 8?

  2. How does Apple support forward compatibility? Do newer iOSs include the implementation of previous SO versions? If not, how can apps built for iOS 6 appear with iOS 6 skeuomorphic look and feel on iOS 7 and newer iOS versions?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 175

Answers (1)

Shachar
Shachar

Reputation: 241

From my experience of around 4 different iOS major releases, the iOS API does change change sometimes, even breaking previous API's. This happened more than once in various cases as: changing the Datatype of the API which resulted in some ugly if-else (if iOS>=7 do this else do that) just to make sure the App doesn't crash. Therefore, you can never be 100% sure that the next iOS would be backwards compatible. BTW: That is why, in every new Xcode you usually don't see the previous iOS versions simulators, so that developers would set the minimum version of their iOS App to the newest version and so users would start to see that they need to update their device OS and so the market would move more quickly to use the new iOS version.

As for the implementation so, it changes much more frequently, a good example is the different UI implementations (iOS6 compared to iOS7 ).

I hope it answer your questions.

Upvotes: 1

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