when i read the release notes for daily build CoronaSDK 2011.707

it felt like an april fools joke. but i checked the date, sad day indeed.

iOS: Increased iOS minimum OS version to 4.3. (Dropping support for older iOS versions.)
iOS: Removed armv6 now that iOS 4.3 is the new baseline.

there is still allot of itouch 2nd gens out there(a big market lost)

ansca say it aint so.

maybe i read or interpreted it wrong...please. :(

This is ridiculous! Corona runs just fine on 2nd gens for most projects and if it doesn't then not supporting that should be the choice of the developer only! I understand 1st gens but 2nd gens still have a respectable market share!

Please do NOT drop support for it, even if it has technical limitations for some reasons you can't work around because it's a 2nd gen then just let us know the limitations for future builds but do NOT drop the support just yet, way too early and makes no sense since it works fine right now.

I certainly hope this is a December fools joke.. it would also disturb plans of companies currently developing games with the hopes of having their apps run on 2nd gen devices. If the apps runs fine, why have Corona limit it?

UNDO THIS!

C'mon... Have 2 my apps in App Store and few others made for my clients. Users on old Apple devices (in Europe) and iOS<4.3 are really small group. You have to understand - we all want to have new features, Corona SDK just port iOS SDK trough C/C++ to lua so sometimes it's easiest and fastes way to drop support for old devices and iOS SDK to bring new features to Corona SDK in stable and proper way.

gtatarkin i hear you but you have to understand it isnt that simple. look at the bigger picture. to limit device installs based on architecture (armv6 vs arm7) requiers you to set UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities in the info.plist. here is were things get messy Apple's policy is "You are permitted to expand your device requirements only. Submitting an update to your binary to restrict your device requirements is not permitted." what this boils down to is if you currently have app made with corona in the app store and try to compile an update with the new corona build it will get rejected. this is a BIG issue and deserves discussion, not just limited to 2 line items in the release notes.

Do you really think Ansca are going to do anything for you, Oknavi? You don't pay.

If you go on the app store, a lot of apps have started to stop working on itouch 2Gs and iphone 3Gs, it seams that quite a few devs have stopped developing for these platforms.

just use older build for 2g and 3g, no big deal

@BrightWaveGames - just build with old Corona SDK without new features, no big deal. On other hand Apple do it same way. Did you ever read iOS SDK? Build an app in Obj-C and Xcode? There are some features in SDK you can't use with older version (strictly OS based).

right but when ansca does add new features such as more ads support or bug fixes...the older build will not have access to them. which can work on older devices. if im alone on this ill shut up now.

The solution is to keep two copies of Corona around. If you need to update an old app, you won't get new features of Corona SDK, but you can continue to build your old apps.

I'll keep 704 around for this purpose.

Hey guys,

I wanted to let you know the reasons behind this.

Support had to be dropped for iOS 3.13 through 4.2 because they are no longer supported by Xcode. 2G/3G devices cannot upgrade past iOS 4.0. (Apple is dropping support too, in other words.)

iOS 4.2 and above is being run by 96% of users. (That stat is from August this year.) iOS 3 is used by 4% of users while iOS 2 is run on less than 0.2% of devices.

This will also decrease the final size of your app as we will not have to include the extra library for ARMv6.

You are still able to use build 704 to build for older devices if you wish.

Peach :)

Look at this:

http://www.marco.org/2011/08/13/instapaper-ios-device-and-version-stats-update

4.3 is about 82% of iOS devices.

Also this is the blog from instapaper developer. He dropped 3.1.3 support in the next update of his app:

http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6474735268

If you look at app store, instapaper needs minimum of 4.2 iOs and was 3.1.3 compatible before, so you can update your app and drop support in app store (instead the apple policy was changed this year)

That's understandable. I've been finding myself not building for anything below 3GS lately. Even my game in the App Store only supports the armv7 architecture only. I know my iPod Touch 2G hasn't been used as often either. It's bound to happen eventually.

Regards,
Michelle

Twitter: @chelleshock1219 and @mobidojo

Peach,

Until you spelled out the stats I was firmly on board the "what are you doing?!" train -- it seemed like an arbitrary decision.

When you guys are going to drop/limit things in the SDK it might be a good idea to proactively explain why that's happening -- right in the release notes -- rather than letting people get a head start on gathering their pitchforks and lighting the torches.

Jay

+1 Jay

Just being picky Peach, but I submitted an update to one of my Obj-C apps on the weekend and it was approved today, using the current Xcode 4.2 and adding armv6 to the compiler settings so it still compiled on iPod Touch 2G with 4.2.1 as well as iOS5 on newer devices. (And this was a fairly complicated app using the Three20 linked library.)

It's a pity that 4.2 isn't supported because of armv6, but I understand. It's just a pity that there's still 8% of base users between 4.2 and 4.3 support. Ah well, moving on... (;

Best,

- Ian

Jay and Jason, I agree with you 100% - it should have been made clear from the get go and I apologize for the fact that it was not. It was an oversight that I know caused some anguish and I am very sorry about that.

Ian, I believe the drop in support from Apple relates to Xcode 4.3, not 4.2. (The 4.3 beta was made available last week, although obviously it should not be used with Corona at this time.)

Peach :)

was given this link with some statistics.

http://twotribes.com/message/ios-idevices-breakdown/

according to them 4.2.1 and lower represents about 20%-30% of the market.

http://www.cocoanetics.com/2011/08/ios-versions-in-the-wild/ is a much better source then the above link. It is about 5% below 4.3. The rest are above and with the newer iPhones and stuff being strictly version 5 I see people upgrading that are stragglers fairly soon.

I'm mixed on this, but the solution is easy (as other pointed out).

Build with an earlier build :)

For my release, I'm pushing the processing power so hard, that 3gs barely runs it (pure corona, no 3rd party tools) so to me I was never in the market for older devices.

With that said, future projects are a lot less intensive so I've earmarked the latest build which supports the older hardware and I'll save it for a rainy day!

ng

This really isn't that big of a deal. We can't move forward without cutting old devices and to get features like push notification. Keep an older Corona SDK around to build for your older devices as needed, use the newer ones to have the newer features.