I'm probably answering my own question, but here goes nothing. I'd like to optimize my apps for the iPhone 5 (long overdue); however, current technology is ironically limited to an "older" Mac with Snow Leopard and Xcode 4.2. Is it safe to say that the only way to create a build for the iPhone 5 would be to upgrade the hardware and software or is there a workaround? Thanks for the heads up! Nicholas

Is your system able to run at least OSX Lion? If so, you can get the new SDK. Otherwise, I think you might be stuck.

@Stobe Wait? I thought that buzztouch automatically resized for iPhone 5. Maybe that's Xcode? Can you explain?

iphone 5 support requires the 6.0 sdk (as far as I know). Which requires Xcode 4.5. Which requires OSX Lion. Which is a problem for owners of 1st gen Mac mini's, older imacs, and older macbooks.

Amen. Thanks for the heads up, Stobe, I am indeed stuck with a 1st gen Mac. An unfortunate handicap. Thanks again! Nicholas

EDIT: @Stobe Okay, makes sense.. Thanks. @Nicholas You may want to consider upgrading your Mac. You can a get a cheap one from a reseller. Munny1

Amen. Thanks for the heads up, Stobe, I am indeed stuck with a 1st gen Mac. An unfortunate handicap. Thanks again! Nicholas

@Stobe Okay, makes sense.. Thanks. @Nicholas You may want to consider upgrading your Mac. You can a get a cheap one from a reseller. Munny1

Thanks, Munny, for the heads up. I'll take a look into it. Thanks again. Nicholas

If you haven't listened to Episode 13 of Buzzcast, you should take a listen. I give some recommendations on how to find a good deal on a mac product. Or you can read the show notes, theres a little bit of info there: http://idevdepot.com/episode13/

Hi Nicholas, I'm in the same boat as you - my Mac mini will only run Snow Leopard, which means only Xcode 4.2, which means NO iOS6 app. You can compile to iOS5, which will run on the iPhone 5, but you won't be able to take advantage of any new iOS6 features. Total bummer, and it angers me that Apple forces hardware upgrades like this. Totally bogus. Mark

FWIW - Don't forget that 'old' system now is capable of still building and making apps that run on ios > 4.3. You can still submit them too, I just had one approved that had ios 3.0 as the deployment target. So it may be a bummer in one direction - but there is a still a large portion of users running ios 4.2 and lower. So it's got some value you may not be considering.

Thanks for all the interactions on this post, it's allowed me to gain some more insight on the matter. I have been able to go up to iOS 5 with Xcode 4.2 on the "old" Mac using one of the tutorials online and have been able to use the iOS 5 simulator to test some features (i.e. ATRAIN53 Tweet Sheet), but I haven't found anything for iOS 6 unfortunately. The pain for me personally is not so much the iOS 6 part, but the fact that my apps will not be able to support the iPhone 5 screen and instead show in the "ugly" letterbox view. What can you do, I guess! Thanks again for the input, Nicholas

You know what's funny actually, now that I come to think of it? Originally, the first few days the iPhone 5 was out, I was able to submit a new binary with Xcode 4.2 with the 640x1136 display for the iPhone 5 and my app page said "Optimized for iPhone 5". Of course, I needed to update it since then and when I did, no longer was I allowed to submit a binary taking advantage of the iPhone 5 resolution with Xcode 4.2. Interesting how it became "incompatible" all of a sudden... :P

Thanks to all who have contributed in this thread! You've helped me foresee some problems with my apps, however I actually have access to a Macbook Pro with OSX Lion at work so I can probably use that to compile my apps for iPhone 5.