2013-07-16-should-you-support-ios-5.html

---
layout: post
title: Should you support iOS 5?
date: '2013-07-16T18:07:00.000-04:00'
author: Carlo
tags:
- iOS
- Auto Layout
- Apple
- Development
- iPad
- Collection View
- Marketshare
- UI State Preservation
modified_time: '2013-11-29T10:51:39.211-05:00'
blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1115978604548657664.post-1009318922022788561
blogger_orig_url: https://thewahlstedts.blogspot.com/2013/07/should-you-support-ios-5.html
---

<strike>Ok, so I know that I bash Apple enough. They drive me crazy from a tech company standpoint because they often copy what others have done, make it a little better, and then release it like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-visual-proof-of-just-how-badly-microsoft-blew-it-with-tablets-2013-5" target="_blank">no one has ever done it before</a>. However, despite that I'm still a nerd at heart which means I like all forms of computing devices. I've been doing some iOS development recently and here's something I came up with if you're trying to decide if you should still support iOS 5.</strike><br /><strike><br /></strike><div class="MsoNormal"><strike>iOS 6 seems to have a <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2010316/197-reasons-you-should-upgrade-to-ios-6-immediately.html">number (197) of security fixes</a> that were never patched in iOS 5. Check&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_5.x">the wiki</a> to verify when the different versions were released. This is just iOS 6 not 6.1.4 and everything in between or iOS 7 currently in Beta 3.<o:p></o:p></strike></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strike><br /></strike></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strike>According to <a href="http://marketingland.com/study-nearly-90-percent-of-ios-users-on-latest-os-47394">this study</a>, as of June 7<sup>th</sup> iOS 5 only had 5.5% of the iPhone market share as opposed to 92.7% using iOS 6. iPad is similar but slightly higher at 13.4% vs 82.9% and those are most likely left over from the original iPad.<o:p></o:p></strike></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strike><br /></strike></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strike>Finally, the part that was most important for me from a development standpoint is that <a href="http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iOS6.html">iOS 6 introduced</a> Collection Views, UI State Preservation, and Auto Layout.</strike></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><ul><li><strike><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Collection Views</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> were something I was considering using for part of the layout and would need another away to implement if I couldn't use them.</span></strike></li><li><strike><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">UI State Preservation</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">&nbsp;is a feature that would greatly reduce development time.</span></strike></li><li><strike><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Auto Layout</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> is probably the most important feature for most devs. It will greatly reduce the development time needed to make sure portrait and landscape are working and look similar. Here’s </span><a href="http://www.raywenderlich.com/20881/beginning-auto-layout-part-1-of-2" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">part 1</a><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> of 2 of a rather in-depth example of the differences.</span></strike></li></ul><strike><br /></strike><strike><br /></strike><div class="MsoNormal"><strike>My personal recommendation would be to drop&nbsp;support for iOS 5. With the way Apple forces upgrades and iOS 7 on the cusp of being released it only makes sense to look forward. However, if you do decide that iOS 5 is important for you to implement, then look into <a href="http://maniacdev.com/2012/12/open-source-library-for-bringing-the-ios-6-auto-layout-api-to-ios-5">this open source implementation of auto layout</a>. There’s also a link in there to his implementation of a collection view.</strike><o:p></o:p><br /><strike><br /></strike>Update: NO WAY!!</div>