How far back can a developer support an app?

[taptic]

Howdy, I'm having one of the classic iOS vs. Android debates with someone on another forum (I know, stupid, but whatever) and they brought up the point that many apps for iDevices are no longer supported with iOS5, or at least they don't get updates anymore on iOS5 and sometimes even 6.

Is which versions of iOS an app is able to run on decided by the developer? or is Apple behind this?

I would't know because I'm not a dev...

 

[Jessica Lares]

iOS 5.1, depends on if the developer implements the new SDK stuff.

But you can keep apps that work as far back to iOS 2.0 in the store, you just can't update them.

What a lame argument, especially when I bet he has a Samsung Galaxy S4 or something. Go tell him to try and rock something like a HTC ChaCha and get back to you.

It won't run most of the new stuff because it's a ARMv6. It runs Gingerbread, but still, a majority of apps right now are ARMv7 and you can't backport them without the knowledge in doing so.