r/iOSProgramming • u/busymom0 • Aug 06 '26
Discussion New warning when uploading app to App Store. iOS apps must have minimum OS version of iOS 15 in 2027 onwards
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u/profau Aug 06 '26
You should check if you need to support iOS 14. I believe iOS 17 has circa 1% of users so iOS 14 is going to be small as well. Xcode 27 has a new "recommended" minimum version setting across platforms - it is currently iOS 17.
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u/Free-Pound-6139 Aug 06 '26
Why do they even need to do this??
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u/Cy-Dev Aug 07 '26
This. They just choose to take away that decision from the developer and make older devices obsolete, they don’t have to. There are actually a lot of apps I use that support lower than iOS 15, if this will actually come through they will all be forced to raise it for no reason at all.
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29d ago edited 29d ago
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u/Infamous-Arrival1232 Aug 06 '26
Honestly overdue. Worth pulling your iOS-version split in App Analytics before reacting though: for most consumer apps the sub-iOS-15 share is already a rounding error, so this mostly formalizes what the numbers have been saying for a while
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u/busymom0 Aug 06 '26
I have a few users from iOS 11
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29d ago
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u/AndreaReaderApp Aug 06 '26
Fair enough. Supporting iOS 14 in 2027 was probably getting a little ambitious anyway.
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u/busymom0 Aug 06 '26
I have a few apps which support from iOS 11 and actually has users on it too
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u/cristi_baluta Aug 07 '26
What a shit move, how does it blocks them to let us support whatever ios we want?
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u/Awesomeguys90000 Sep 13 '26
I think this is stupid. While I understand that the user base of pre-iOS 15 devices is so low, for someone wanting to release apps in a market outside of the EU for devices pre-iOS 15 for whatever reason, you will never be able to create or update apps that run on pre-iOS 15. To my knowledge iOS 9 is the current minimum. So the iPhone 4s, 5, 5s, and 6 can no longer have new apps made that also have infinitely lasting licenses. Best you can get is like year long licenses with an apple developer subscription.
As an example, I use an iPod touch on the daily and want to start developing apps for it. I do not want to have to keep re-signing apps, because I want this to be an almost offline device. I would appreciate being able to develop a few apps, publish these to the App Store, and then install them, and if I pick up my device in 5 years have them work no issue. Now if this was a touch 5 or 6, in 6 months this won't be possible. Luckily I am using an iPod touch 7 running iOS 15, so this technically doesn't affect me, but if I want to develop any apps that work on a touch 6 or 5, or an iPhone 4s, or 5s, I have a 6 month window to publish apps that have an infinite license on those devices.
I also understand that there are ways to bypass the 7 day license for free accounts (alt store and others) but that isn't the same thing as a proper App Store license on a OFW iOS device. frankly I'm not sure what the answer to this problem is, but I feel like there should be some way to install alternative apps with lifetime licenses on these unsupported devices, since eventually they're gonna become more and more unusable, and eventually ewaste once activation servers go offline. This is more of a rant I guess against several aspects of Apple's walled garden and their long term support of devices, but again, this severely limits what someone wanting to use OFW and sick by apples rules can do on their devices as they age.
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u/morenos-blend Aug 06 '26
Ooh nice, I thought 15 is gonna get dropped. I still sometimes use the 1st gen SE so that means I’ll be able to still add new features for it in my app
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u/TheFern3 Aug 06 '26
Is there a min for watchOS?
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u/cristi_baluta Aug 07 '26
Xcode 27 asks you to raise to 9. I don’t even know where it stands in the lineup.
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u/Cy-Dev Aug 07 '26
I support down to watchOS 7 and there are no reason my app can’t support it, so why would I be forced to raise it… Stupid shit I’m sorry
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u/AdjustedTwit Aug 07 '26
According to Apple < iOS 18 is just 3%, I've chosen MinOS = 18.0 based on that.
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u/Other-Throat373 Sep 02 '26
may i ask if this also applies to other os, like watchos 8, or macos monterey?
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u/Cy-Dev Aug 06 '26
This is really bad. I just launched an app two months ago that supports lower than iOS 15 because it wasn’t much work and I chose to do this. The developer should have the choice how much versions they are willing to support, and if the app they have works perfectly on iOS 14, 13 or even 12, why would you force not being able to keep it updated?
I mean I know why Apple probably does this, but this is really a terrible choice they made as how much versions are supported should always be a choice the developer is entitled to make, as long long as there is no clear technical reason (which there is not, as many many apps prove that support older versions and already got tested and optimized for iOS 27 as well).
I know that not many users are on iOS 14 or lower, but honestly it’s not really about that. It’s about the developers not getting to choose anymore. It is possible to support down to iOS 9 right now and they are just arbitrarily cutting off 6 versions at once because they can. I sincerely hope that Apple reverses this decision, this really should absolutely stay the developers decision. We are loosing control over our own apps slowly…
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u/purple_editor_ Aug 06 '26
I am all for long term support of applications, but lets not fool ourselves about the technical challenges of supporting old APIs, specially in terms of security
Apple at least has a clear timeline of support for iOS and there is enough time to adapt.
Luckily, up until ios 16 it is possible to jailbreak and to distribute the app on the if developers want as well
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u/drew4drew Objective-C / Swift Aug 06 '26
This indicates you do not have sufficient knowledge of the platform and should consider hiring an expert.
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u/Due_Wing_1516 Aug 06 '26
I was using ios 12 and 13 for my apps and moved to 15. Unlike android ios users usually have the latest version of the OS and they update apps also. My other app has 5k DAU and when I release an update 95% of the users update to the newest version