iOS Does owning the latest iPhone necessary in iOS programming?

[banapple]

After the announcement of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus I gotta admit i wasn't impressed. I'm now thinking of not upgrading my Samsung Galaxy S4 and just wait out on other phones. The only reason I think I should upgrade to an iPhone 6 is because I might need it to test out some apps if ever I push through with my plan to study Objective C and iOS programming. So my question is do I need to have the latest iDevice to test my future iOS apps?

I own an iPad 3rd gen btw, will that be enough testing hardware for iOS programming? or do i really need the latest iPhone?

Thanks.

 

[chrono1081]

After the announcement of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus I gotta admit i wasn't impressed. I'm now thinking of not upgrading my Samsung Galaxy S4 and just wait out on other phones. The only reason I think I should upgrade to an iPhone 6 is because I might need it to test out some apps if ever I push through with my plan to study Objective C and iOS programming. So my question is do I need to have the latest iDevice to test my future iOS apps?

I own an iPad 3rd gen btw, will that be enough testing hardware for iOS programming? or do i really need the latest iPhone?

Thanks.

I would highly suggest it, especially if your app is for both iPhone and iPad and takes advantage of hardware. If its a game, you'll need the hardware.

The simulator gets you pretty far but its slow and not indicative of real performance. You also don't get real feedback from certain hardware components.

 

[Kashsystems]

If it is not doing anything intensive or using a feature only available to new hardware then I would stick with whatever runs ios8.

Your iPad 3 probably is enough for that but you may want to consider getting an older phone off contract like the 5/5c to see how your app would look on that screen.

 

[firewood]

As long as you have an iOS device that runs the current release of the OS (and devices for any lower deployment targets you build your app for), you don 't really need a phone unless you need to test some phone API related functionality, or your app uses an audio session.

If your app pushes graphics performance limits, an older slower device may be more important for testing than a newer one.

 

[TouchMint.com]

While its not needed I suggest it especially since they will be new sizes. I will end up getting both the 4.7 and 5.5 I think =/

 

[Twimfy]

Depends what you develop. In the old days when I used to develop games. I'd stay a generation behind (or buy an earlier generation to use along side my current). This was to ensure that those with slower devices still got a great experience.

The difference used to be significant between 3G, 3GS and 4 etc but now it doesn't matter so much as most game engines offer some form of scalability.

At present though I am looking to upgrade to a 6 from a 5C mainly because I'd like to experiment with the TouchID and some of the Healthkit APIs.

It doesn't hurt to be ahead of the curve as a developer, but if it's not within your budget and you still want to develop it's by no means necessary.

 

[1458279]

You can develop on the older devices then have someone test it on a newer device. As long as the new device will run the OS and doesn't have some special sensor or something that you are using, you'll be fine.

Another option is to have a company test it for you, I've heard about companies that will test your app on different devices.

I don't know of anything on the iPhone 6 that would require an upgrade except for maybe testing graphics, but that can be done on someone else's device.

 

[kyussmondo]

It is ideal to try and work with a good variety of devices old and new, but obviously if you are an independent developer that is not always feasible. So just develop on the device you have and I would run with the latest iOS as the majority of iOS users update straight away anyway and check iOS 6 stuff in the simulator if you are required to support iOS 6.

I recommend using https://www.testflightapp.com for beta testing. Send it out to a bunch of people with a variety of devices, they can give feedback and you can even include code in your app so you are notified of crashes etc.

I think in iOS 8 Apple are allowing beta apps as well.