[cloudwalking]

I have been bitten twice by changes to the iOS SDK. An app that ran fine, without error, on one version of iOS would crash on a later version.

It's always something caused by a programmer, but not necessarily the app programmer...

[allenbrunson]

That's not really proof that you were doing things correctly. You could well have been relying on undocumented corner case behavior that just happened to be true in one version of iOS, but not the next.

Awhile back, a bunch of apps got updated with what the authors called "fixes for iOS5." I have an app on the store that works all the way back to iOS 3.0, and it needed no updates at all for iOS5.

Occasionally Apple does take away documented, working APIs, but it's rare. In general, I'd say an app needs updates for a new version of iOS mostly because the author assumed things that weren't true.

[leviathan]

I believe most of the "fixes for iOS 5" and "adding iOS 5 support" updates are just marketing strategies. It makes users feel that the app is up to date.

I did this recently for an app that needed no update other than a small bug fix, but I slapped on a "support for iOS 5" just for good measures.

[tobefairanon]

To be fair, this is why you, as an Apple Developer, get the SDK in advance of the general public and is why Apple strongly encourages you to do your due diligence before the iOS version goes public. And they do release API diffs, too.

[bwarp]

Ironically, Microsoft tend to make sure that this never happens inside the Windows API.