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Update

On december 17, 2013, Apple has issued a statement about when they will be forcing everyone to submit new apps with Xcode 5:

"Starting February 1, new apps and app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the latest version of Xcode 5 and must be optimized for iOS 7."

iOS 7 was originally announced on June 10, 2013, with Xcode 5.x being released on October 22, 2013. This spans a time frame of close to eight months between announcing iOS 7 and enforcing Xcode 5 submissions, with the release of Xcode pretty nicely in the middle.

Original question

Apps that are built with Xcode 4.x (targeting the iOS 6.x SDK's) will run on iOS 7 in a kind of legacy-mode, emulating features like the black status bars, old UISwitch appearances etc. I don't know if this mode is documented somewhere with another name or maybe is not discussed due to NDA-restrictions, but I can't find any details about it (upvotes for the canonically accepted name of this mode).

If you compile the same app without any modifications from Xcode 5, it gets compiled as a first class iOS 7 citizen, with the new status bar appearance and controls. In fact, I can't find any way in Xcode 5 to have the app launch in legacy-mode (I'll upvote comments for any non-NDA-violating hints on this, but the real question is about something else).

The app I'm currently working on works in this legacy-mode, but will crash when compiled with Xcode 5, due to very old iOS 4.x code. This can be addressed of course, but with a short deadline the client has asked me to not address it, focussing on a set of features first, and only after that updating the project to be a 'real' iOS 7 app.

When weighing all the rumors and experiences in past years, the iOS 7 launch is supposedly imminent. It is absolutely vital that the updates I'm currently working on are submitted to the App Store as an iOS 6 update. To my current knowledge, this means the app has to be built with Xcode 4, inherently with the base SDK set tot iOS 6.x (or iphoneos6.1 as it's called in the build settings).

https://i.stack.imgur.com/LISDN.png

I'm assuming Apple will at some point around the launch of iOS 7 start rejecting apps that were built with Xcode 4 and the iOS 6 SDK, in order to push the adoption of real iOS 7 apps, phasing out the necessity of the legacy mode. With this I'm hoping to aim for an iOS 6 app submission before they start rejecting 'old school' apps, but I have no real intel on when this might be.

So here comes the real question:

Are there examples of cases like these with prior iOS releases, that Apple started rejecting apps built with older Xcodes or SDK's? The time frame between the release of an iOS version and when Apple rejects apps is what I'm most interested in.

P.S. Here's a forum post that seemed to indicate this happening around the launch of iOS 6, but the very last post devalues it: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forums/topic/apple-dev-support-says-all-apps-must-now-be-built-with-ios-6-sdk

P.P.S There's also the date when Apple started rejecting non iPhone5-optimized apps, but that had nothing to do with an SDK change, let alone a major version change like 6 to 7: http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/03/21/after-a-year-of-warnings-apple-will-no-longer-accept-any-apps-that-use-udids-as-of-may-1st/

epologee
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    This is not really answerable unless you're Apple. They will start rejecting submissions built for old iOS versions, but it will _likely_ be at least a few months after the iOS 7 GM. – Stephen Darlington Aug 16 '13 at 09:32
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    If you look at the part labeled "the real question" you'll see that this *is* answerable. I'm looking for data on **previous ios releases**, not for presumptions like the 'a few months after'. I'm perfectly capable of drawing conclusions like those myself. Apple of course, is not ever going to comment on their roadmap, so that's not the kind of intel I'm looking for. I don't get why you want to put this on hold so badly. – epologee Aug 16 '13 at 17:45
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    Apple has now officially announced apps need to be compiled with Xcode 5 starting February 1, 2014: https://developer.apple.com/news/index.php?id=12172013a – karlbecker_com Dec 18 '13 at 21:06
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    Now that would be an answer worth a very big green checkmark, but unfortunately, this question was closed. I'll update the question with it, for reference. Thanks @karlbecker_com! – epologee Dec 19 '13 at 14:10
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    I can't find a vote to unlock button so I'm commenting instead... – Stephen J Jan 07 '14 at 06:33
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    you can add SDK 6.1 to XCode 5.1, I've submitted an app recently and got approved. Basically copy /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS6.1.sdk – colin lamarre Apr 23 '14 at 04:51

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