发行我的应用的独家ios5版本

Question

I recently found my app doesn't work on iOS 5 and I have a few users who have asked that I release an older version that works on iOS5. One of them sent me this link http://news.softpedia.com/news/Apple-Enables-Pre-iOS-7-Downloads-Offers-Old-App-Versions-When-Necessary-383663.shtml Is there any way to release two versions of my app? One for ios6+ and one for ios5?

Answer 1

Apple does not provide a way to do this, but there is a way to do it yourself if you REALLY want to.

You have to create a new app id and name, (eg: MyApp for iOS 5). Then you have to set the deployment target of your iOS 5 app to iOS 5. Of course, someone with iOS 6 or 7 could also install it, so you might want to detect the the system version (via UIDevice) and offer to take them to the app store to get the newer version. You'll end up with two apps in the app store and your users will have to figure out which one is the best one for them.

You're probably better off trying to get your existing app to work on iOS 5 and fix whatever issues you're encountering with that OS (unless you're using autolayout--which is not supported on iOS 5 and would mean you'd likely have to re-do a lot of your UI for that OS version).

That said, there's a diminishing return on investment to support older versions of iOS. Most people update to the latest version of iOS pretty quickly and the number of users stuck with an old version of the OS who are unable to upgrade is going to steadily shrink.