Continuing their aggressive push to encourage developers to fully support the latest iOS 7 firmware in their apps, Apple posted a new notice to developers yesterday announcing that all new apps and updates submitted after February 1st of next year must be optimized for iOS 7. Failure to comply will result in Apple denying the update outright.
The full text of the notice is as follows:
Make Your Apps Work Seamlessly with iOS 7
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. Learn more about preparing your apps by reviewing the iOS Human Interface Guidelines.
Apple has just published a notice to developers on its dev center that all new apps submitted after February 1st, 2014 must be built with the latest version of Xcode 5 and “must be optimized for iOS 7.” Essentially any apps built using old versions of Xcode or possibly even just maintaining an iOS 6-style interface in Apple’s brave new world of software will be rejected from the store.
Besides feature updates, the policy also applies to any and all bug fix updates submitted after February 1 as well. Apple has typically made such aggressive approaches with previous major iOS releases – so while this shouldn’t come as any surprise, it remains important for iOS developers to be aware!
