I've just installed ios7 on my iPhone, however I have not yet downloaded xCode5, so I've been producing my archives using iOS6 SDK and using TestFlight to test them on my phone. When running my app on iOS7, I'm noticing a lot of bugs that I didn't see in iOS6 (some that are unpredictable and very difficult to fix). I've been avoiding downloading xCode7 because I'm not yet ready to make the commitment to the new UI elements, but I'm wondering if I did produce my app using the iOS7 SDK, is it possible some of these bugs could be eliminated?
This is a very broad question. iOS 7, despite its advanced beta count, is still very much a work in progress. There are bugs that should be reported to Apple that should not happen. But beyond that, there are changes in the internal API that influence how the app behaves. Apple has done its best to try and preserve SDK 6 apps as much as possible, but there is breaking API which can cause crashes. One example off the top of my head is the class cluster they are now using with ABPersonViewController. Subclassing that in iOS 6 works fine, but in iOS 7, even when compiled with SDK 6, causes a crash in most cases. These issues can be resolved even with Xcode 4.6 and SDK 6.
Compiling with SDK 7 may help you fix some issues, but it will come with a plethora of issues of its own. Depending on how complex your view hierarchy is, you may have to invest a considerable amount of effort to support the new API and functionality. You don't really have a choice, as this is the future, but you should be prepared for this, and arrange your schedule accordingly.
Related
Suppose I want to design a master detail application, Xcode6 master-detail project template for universal app includes UISplitViewController and splitViewController is new in iOS8. I want to support app for iOS7 also.
In general
What is the best way to design an universal app using Xcode6
storyboard that support both iOS8 and iOS7 ?
Is it better to use separate story board for different OS version ?
What are the best practices we should follow to make app compatible with both OS?
The 'best way' to create such an app will likely depend on what exactly your app needs to be able to do. Some ways will be better than others depending on any special behavior needed.
But it is definitely possible to use a single Universal storyboard in Xcode 6 that uses Size Classes and still target iOS 7, both iPhone and iPad, using UISplitViewController. I have successfully done just that. It did take a lot of work to ensure it worked properly and looked consistent on iOS 7 and 8. You have to be a little careful when it comes to performing the various new adaptive segues, as that is a huge difference between iOS 7 and 8. For example, detecting when you have a popover is going to require some work for the two different OSes, handling unwind segues will require some special handling, etc. It will require a lot of testing. Dedicate time to testing the iPhone 6 Plus - in landscape it will show both the master and detail on screen, but you can have control over that.
After going through that experience, I would much rather implement a single storyboard as opposed to two storyboards, one for each OS, and definitely stay away from creating a storyboard for each OS and then one for each device type.
You'll want to read up on the SDK Compatibility Guide to learn how to detect API availability. If you implement an API that doesn't exist on iOS 7 the app will crash, so you need to only run that code if that function exists for the OS the app is running on. For example, you may want to utilize the new UIBlurEffect API, but that doesn't exist on iOS 7. Gain an understanding of what deprecation means, and knowing what has changed in iOS 8 will greatly help. For example, the rotation APIs are deprecated in favor of Size Class trait collections, but those aren't available on iOS 7 so you'll need to continue to use the deprecated rotation API.
Also check out some WWDC videos from this year. They have a couple videos that discuss the new adaptive segues and Universal storyboards. Note that these storyboards ARE backwards compatible with iOS 7, but there are some size classes that aren't made available on iOS 7. See this question and the answer I provided for more information. WWDC videos from previous years also discuss how one can support multiple OSes, progressive enhancement, etc.
And of course when you have questions/problems Stack Overflow is a great resource. A lot of the questions I've posted in the past few months are related to this topic exactly, how to modify UISplitViewController behavior, obtain support for both OSes, using a single storyboard and the new adaptive segues, etc. You may wish to read through those to get an idea of what you can expect to run into when developing an app in the same fashion.
I'm trying to build a crossplatform (Android-ios) mobile application, using Titanium SDK. I didn't have a chance for a long time to build it for ios, I only used my Windows-android combination, to test it, and it works great on the Android system. But when i try to build it on the mac for the ios, i get this message, and the application shuts down in a second:
The application has crashed with an uncaught exception
'NSInvalidArgumentException'.
Since i can not provide any relevant code, because the exception doesn't show what's the problem with my javascript code, and I certainly didn't write any native, ios specific code, i have no idea, what to do.
From the few posts i have found here is what i have tried:
Restart Titanium Studio
Clean the project
Made sure to close any ResultSet, and DB objects when done with
them (as suggested here: topic)
Test the code on both 3.0.0 and 2.x.x versions
I'm looking forward to any advice, on how you solved this problem, if you had it!
Thanks in advance!
Update:
The problem was the following: I called hasOwnProperty on Titanium UI elements, and on the ios version these elements don't have this function (which is weird, since every javascript objects have it, if i'm not mistaken).
If you have similar problems, i recomend reading this article, besides mr.VVoos answer, it helps a lot in avoiding the problems i had!
I'm developing with Titanim and iOS & Android for a long time. Usually there are many differences between iOS and Android parts of the code.
In most cases this exceptions means that an operation is called that is not available for the called class. (In Java this would mean: Class.method() -> Class has no method called method()).
You can try to run the app in debug mode (on iOS Simulator). There is a big advantage debuggin iOS compared to Android. Usually the iOS simulator stops if there is an exception and it shows the JavaScript code that caused the exception. Unfortunately this doesn't work all the time and it only works on simulator.
If this does not provide any further information you can do the following:
- go to your app.js and set a breakpoint in one of the first lines.
- start app in debug mode.
- move on this breakpoint each time until your app crashes - maybe then you are able to detect the error or provide further information.
One last tip: Check your code if there are any platform-specific parts. (Like Android Intents and something that is not available on iOS).
I know that this can be very ugly but we had to solve many of these nasty issues while migrating from iOS to Android.
I need to create an application capable to modify and manage files on IOS.
With IOS 5 is "easy" to create a Document-Based Application, but I need to support IOS 4 too.
Anyone knows if there is a way to create a Document-Based Applications in IOS 4?
Thanks in advance.
Short answer is no as UIDocument and UIManagedDocument only arrived with iOS 5
Long answer is yes. There are hundreds of document based apps for iOS. e.g Brushes, Sketchbook Pro which are all document based apps. My own app is document based, its not that hard to do.
What UIDocument/UIManagedDocument provides is a canned API for making a generic document. Feed it a URL and it does (most of) the rest of the housekeeping.
If you wish to do an iOS4 based app then stuff you will need to pay attention to is.
UIApplicationWillTerminateNotification/UIApplicationDidEnterBackgroundNotification
Opening a new document.
Saving a document.
Shutting a document.
Autosave (maybe)
Core Data stack , if you're using Core Data
www.raywenderlich.com has some great tutorials. Maybe even iOS4 based ones still.
IMO - Don't bother with iOS4 support. Like above post states 85% use iOS5 and anyone still on iOS4 probably isn't in your target market. Especially as this is (I assume) a new app and iOS6 will be around by the time you go to market.
Just going to ask, do you really need to support iOS 4?
The adoption of iOS is over 85% of devices.
Whats the basis for the need to continue iOS 4 support?
I am building my app using iOS 5.0 as base SDK and iOS 3.0 as deployment target.
I know I need to check for existence of methods and classes when I work with features that are not available in the earlier iOS versions, but lately I've lost a few hours on a problem just to discover I was calling a method not available in some iOS versions. I simply did not notice it was a new method and did no check before to call it. The app of course compiled with 0 errors and 0 warnings.
This is a big problem because if I forgot some other check somewhere in the app, I will not know it until I or, worst, some user will activate that specific part of code.
Maybe I am missing something, is there some compiler option I can set to detect the calls I make to methods not available in the iOS deployment target? How do you deal with such a problem?
This link might point you in the right direction. Supporting mutiple ios Versions in your apps. It explains how to deal with taking advantage of the newer ios features while maintaining backwards compatibility. Hope that helps.
The only way to check for compatibility with a prior version of iOS, currently, it to test the app on an old non-updated device running that version of the OS.
If you can't find a device that old, even just to borrow for short time, then there may not be a good buiness reason to set the Deployment target that low.
After reading:
iphone: submit app with iOS 5 and XCode 4.2?
I realize that using ARC and expecting to release an app to the app store with this technology might have been a bit short-sighted of me. What is the best course of action for me?
Use Xcode 4 and redo the memory management
Wait for Xcode 4.2 to be released
Some other magical way that will solve all my issues and make my dreams come true
Thanks for the advice.
Update: Just in case anyone wandered on to this, it was while Xcode 4.2 was still in beta. End result: don't use beta features unless you're ok with waiting for the final release.
So, first, there is no Santa Claus. That leaves us with:
How urgently do you want to ship?
Xcode 4.2 is going to ship with iOS 5. iOS 5 is likely to ship around September. It could be later. So can you sit on your app for that long? If so, eh, keep polishing, maybe work on some additional features, do an exhaustive run of QA, then when the GM is ready you'll be all set.
If you want to be the master of your own destiny and ship on your terms, install Xcode 4.1 and run the static analyzer to get the full measure of your missing memory management, spend a few hours fixing things up, then profile and test the hell out of it just to be sure. Read up on the Leaks instrument, along with NSZombieEnabled, should you run into unexpected memory issues (dunno how big your project is, but I'm sure they can build up with the luxury of ARC snatched away).