Apple today began sending out emails to developers, reminding them that as of February 1, 2015, all apps submitted to the App Store need to be built with the iOS 8 software development kit and include 64-bit support. Developers were first informed of the upcoming rules back in October, after the release of iOS 8 and the iPhone 6/6 Plus.
The email also states that as of June 1, 2015, all app updates submitted to the App Store will need to adhere to the same requirements, giving the company a way to make sure all current apps take advantage of 64-bit support and are iOS 8 compliant. The shift to across-the-board 64-bit support will offer improved app performance on 64-bit devices.
Dear Developer,
As we announced in October, beginning February 1, 2015 new iOS apps submitted to the App Store must include 64-bit support and be built with the iOS 8 SDK. Beginning June 1, 2015 app updates will also need to follow the same requirements. To enable 64-bit in your project, we recommend using the default Xcode build setting of "Standard architectures" to build a single binary with both 32-bit and 64-bit code.
Apple first began asking developers to submit 64-bit apps following the September 2013 release of the iPhone 5s, which introduced the 64-bit A7 processor. All of Apple’s newest devices, including the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, and iPad mini 3 offer 64-bit processors, as does the iPad mini 2 and the original iPad Air.
At the current time, developers are still permitted to submit 32-bit apps along with universal binaries, but that option will expire when February rolls around.
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Top Rated Comments
Apple cuts off old versions of Xcode all the time. This move doesn't exclude any more devices than any other Xcode cut-offs in the past.
Requiring 64-bit binaries does not exclude 32-bit binaries. Both binaries are included. Most of an app's size is not from the binary, but from other resources such as graphics or audio. A 10.25 MB download might jump to 10.75 MB.
Devices this new requirement will help:
* iPhone 5S
* iPhone 6
* iPhone 6 Plus
* iPad Air
* iPad mini 2
* iPad Air 2
* iPad mini 3
Device this new requirement will harm:
* none
A 64-bit device running a 64-bit app may end up with more available memory for that app since it does not have to load 32-bit libraries in addition to 64-bit libraries. Understand? Compiling with 64-bit support can make an old app run better.
OS X applications already included 32/64-bit binaries. In fact, many applications had both the PowerPC/Intel binaries ("Universal" binaries). No one complained then.
Apple isn't the only company that does this. Microsoft .NET compiles apps with native 32/64-bit support as well.
Why would they do that, though? They need to be able to say that you can access eleventy million apps because their OS is the best.
Much of the space that apps take up is images, icons, and resources. Those are universal and the app bundle only contains one copy of those files regardless of 32/64 bit.