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What is the Best Way to Use iPhone 3.0 Features While Still Maintaining Compatibility with Earlier Versions?

Answer 1

+4 A:

The iPhone platform has the highest upgrade rate of any mobile OS so I would not get worried about backward compatibility. Move to the OS 3.0 API and focus on doing more other great stuff with your app.

If people want your app and they have 2.2.1 - all they have to do is upgrade - and iPhone OS is also the easiest OS to upgrade.

Grouchal 2009-06-23 18:51:52

Except if you have an iPod. Every upgrade has costed iPod users $10, adding up to $30 so far.

Will Eddins 2009-06-23 18:54:11

Guard makes a good point. The $10 definitely slows down the iPod Touch crowd. I think there's a good portion of the iPod users that will never upgrade. Luckily, it's the same group that will never buy apps! Within a few weeks, I think most of the top apps on the store will require 3.0 - so I wouldn't worry about compatibility.

Ben Gotow 2009-06-23 19:02:12

Signs point to high adoption, even for iPod Touch users: http://tapbots.com/blog/news/iphone-os-30-adoption-rate

Hunter 2009-06-23 20:23:04

Yes, but that article is slightly biased due to the fact they limited their survey to only the users who were running the latest version of ConvertBot (which weeds out the people who don't update much)

mclaughlinj 2009-06-24 05:13:29

Answer 2

+4 A:

Since Objective-C is a very dynamic language, you can target 2.x and query for the existence of 3.0 features:

id pasteboard = [objc_getClass("UIPasteboard") generalPasteboard];
if (pasteboard) {
    NSLog(@"Got pasteboard, we're clearly on 3.0+");
} else {
    NSLog(@"Pasteboard not available, definitely 2.x");
}

rpetrich 2009-06-23 22:25:03

This is great and shows one of the many ways you can determine what version of the OS you're running and run different code depending on that conclusion.

mclaughlinj 2009-06-24 05:14:20

This is more along the lines of what I had in mind. However, is there any way to directly query to OS version? Tying the determination of the OS version to the existence of specific features feels brittle to me.

Jonathan Arbogast 2009-06-24 14:04:28

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What is the Best Way to Use iPhone 3.0 Features While Still Maintaining Compatibility with Earlier Versions?

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