Can I support iOS from version 3.0 to 6.0?

Question

I updated my app code to support iOS 6 (of course I installed xcode 4.5 and iOS 6 SDK).

My deployment target is still 3.0 I made an archive but it didn't validate and complained about MISSING architecture armv6 but I my warnings I can see :

warning: architecture armv6 is not supported (current ARCHS = "armv7 armv7s armv6").
warning: iOS deployment targets lower than 4.3 are not supported (current IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET = "3.0", ARCHS = "armv7 armv7s armv6").

So what? Am I forced to drop armv6 and all devices that run iOS < 4.3 ? Isn't there a way to support iOS from version 3.0 to 6.0 ?

Answer 1

Xcode 4.5 does not support generating ARM6 code. You will indeed have to drop support for those devices for new releases of your App when built using Xcode 4.5.

From the Xcode 4.5 Release notes:

This version of Xcode does not generate armv6 binaries. 12282156

Still I need to emphasize that iOS3 still is supported for old projects. When building new projects, the lowest offered iOS deployment target is 4.3. But then again, that is almost an academic piece of information since only the iPhone 3GS runs on the ARM7 platform and orignally was released with iOS3, back in 2009 (2G and 3G are ARM6 platform devices). That 3GS got very recently discontinued (12th September 2012) but does support the complete update path of iOS (up until and including iOS6 - whereas some iOS6 features are missing on that device).

Answer 2

You can keep a copy of XCode 4.3 to build your iOS 3 apps thats the only way.

Kinda Sucks I would think you should be able to target lower versions of the OS but I do understand the the why Apple thinks is just to stop supporting things after a time, which in the big picture is why i like iOS over Droid!

Answer 3

even Xcode 5 can genereate binaries with armv6 support after light modify it. Look this answer for more information: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12836808/751932