With the rumored release of iOS GM for developers today (and having a day off tomorrow) I'm getting excited to play around with the new xcode and update many of my apps. I see on the discussion board there is a core BT update coming soon but will probably start before then. My big dilemma is whether I try to support all the way back to iOS 5 (to keep those people with 1st gen iPads happy) and try to make it look good for all versions or just say screw it and from this point on keep the min target to iOS 7. THoughts???

Never make the min target iOS7, super bad idea. I support down to 5.1 right now in all my apps, when 7 is released I would recommend at least supporting the lowest 6.0 version you can (I will do the same and drop support for 5.1 and make my min 6.x). Cheers, David

I've found that when developing for the mass market you always want to target a minimum of two years backward. (i.e iOS 5) -tM

Why not go for iOS 5? Remember that first of all, you'll be missing out those people with iPod Touch (3rd Gen) and iPad (1st Gen), and that includes me! But second is that some people have no idea about these operating systems and with last year's fiasco with Apple Maps, there is still a proportion of people who haven't upgraded their 4's and 4S's up to iOS 6 yet. Unless you have a unique iOS 6 feature, I'd stick with the lowest possible operating system your app can manage. I go right down to iOS 4.3 because I can, not because I particularly need to, but because I can. With my analytics, I know I am keeping 8 people happy with sticking to iOS 4.3 instead of iOS 5.

Totally get that. A lot of my custom plugins require 6.x and sometimes it's annoying trying to make all the code happy. I do it more for me (to save me time, I don't notice a huge difference with downloads when I do put all the work into it making it 5.x) and take the hit on the loss of users who can't install my app. Cheers, David

Also, I doubt that iOS 7 will come out this week. An Apple Press Conference has been scheduled for September 10, where we'll hopefully be able to see an iPhone (and possibly iPad) release. An iOS 7 public release date will also be announced and should be public about one week later. Nobody really knows what will happen, but over the last two years, a product launch pattern has emerged and I doubt they would change this year.

@Thomas whoops. That should be a minimum not maximum lol. I've edited my post. Funny how one word can change the meaning of an sentence. But your also right in that generally you should stick to the lowest iOS possible. -tM

It also has a lot to do with your target market. For example, if you have any desire of targeting schools or educators, you may want to support iOS5 for all the 1st Gen iPads that may be in schools, and probably wont be upgraded with the current budget restraints. If you target a more cutting edge crowd, and you want to include some iOS7 magic, then your decision may be different.

Remember that between iOS 5 and iOS 7, there is not a lot of time difference. Steve Jobs never saw the iOS 5 public. When he died, the most up-to-date public iOS was 4.3. That gives you a time scale of how things change rapidly.