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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-02T02:52:44+00:00

After a marathon coding session, where I added too much code without keeping track

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After a marathon coding session, where I added too much code without keeping track of everything, I now have an app that probably has some iOS 5.0 and 5.1 specific enums, calls and frameworks, however, I want my app to support iOSes back to 4.3.

I was hoping that there was an easy way of setting Xcode to compile as if it were compiling for iOS 4.3, so that I would get errors for all of the offending code that needs to be conditioned out, and/or alternatively coded, for older iOS.

I thought I’d get that by using the compiler option: 

-D__IPHONE_OS_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED=__IPHONE_4_3

but that ends up generating error in system header files, not my code.

Given that most enums and frameworks have their availability included in the header files, I have to think that there is an easy way to do what I need.

Has anyone managed to do such a thing without resorting to downloading older Xcodes with old SDKs? There I may run into the issue of Xcodes that won’t function properly under Lion (which is what I am running).

UPDATE: It appears as though I can’t install Xcode 3.2.6 on Lion. I now will have to find a Snow Leopard Mac, unless I find a way to use compiler options or forcing Xcode to use old SDKs…

Here is a sample of what @mattjgalloway’s answer did for me:

Lumin App Group

/Users/mz/Dev/Working/Lumin/Lumin/MyUIScreen.m

  • ‘brightness’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘brightness’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘brightness’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘brightness’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!

/Users/mz/Dev/Working/Lumin/Lumin/LuminViewController+Share.m

  • ‘TWTweetComposeViewController’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘TWTweetComposeViewController’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘TWTweetComposeViewController’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!

/Users/mz/Dev/Working/Lumin/Lumin/LuminViewController.m

  • ‘scrollView’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘connectionWithMediaType:’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘connectionWithMediaType:’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘AVCaptureDeviceSubjectAreaDidChangeNotification’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!
  • ‘setSubjectAreaChangeMonitoringEnabled:’ is deprecated: TOO NEW!

Very nice.

I placed the following in my project’s .pch file, and am planning on doing so for all projects:

#if DEBUG
#define __IPHONE_OS_VERSION_SOFT_MAX_REQUIRED __IPHONE_OS_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED
#import "MJGAvailability.h"
#endif

For any project, I am now automatically watching for SDK issues based on the earliest iOS I am targeting. While there still may be SDK changes I have to worry about, at least I know of most framework additions that are unavailable to an older iOS release.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Take a look at my MJGAvailability.h here on GitHub. Basically it defines the right preprocessor #defines so that newer APIs will look like they’re deprecated, so you get a compiler warning. There’s some documentation at the top of the file, but basically you just do this in your PCH file:

    #define __IPHONE_OS_VERSION_SOFT_MAX_REQUIRED __IPHONE_4_3
#import "MJGAvailability.h"

    For if you want to support down to iOS 4.3.

    It’s certainly not 100% foolproof, but I find it incredibly useful for doing what you’re asking.

    If you want to suppress a warning because maybe you know that it’s OK to use that API (you’ve surrounded it with a respondsToSelector for example) then you can do something like this:

    UINavigationBar *navBar = self.navigationController.navigationBar;
if ([navBar respondsToSelector:@selector(setBackgroundImage:forBarMetrics:)]) {
#pragma clang diagnostic push
#pragma clang diagnostic ignored "-Wdeprecated-declarations"
    [navBar setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"navbar_bg.png"] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
#pragma clang diagnostic pop
}
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