SB on older versions of iOS

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MarkP
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Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:32 pm

SB on older versions of iOS

Post by MarkP »

Assuming that I have working backups of old SmartBasic app files (.ipa), what is the OLDEST version of iOS that SB will run on?

iOS 5?
iOS 4?

I have some old iPhone 3G devices running iOS 4.2.1 and was wondering if SB ever supported iOS 4?

The reason that I hoard old .ipa files is that I learned the hard way with a competing iPhone Basic app, MiSoft Basic! - which introduced new versions that occasionally broke features. One new update actually caused code to run 5X slower. I still have lots of MiSoft Basic code that I need to convert to SB.

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Mr. Kibernetik
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Re: SB on older versions of iOS

Post by Mr. Kibernetik »

Minimal iOS version supported by sB 5.8 is iOS 8.0.
But I don't know if App Store will allow to install older sB version for lower iOS version, which was iOS 6.0 or iOS 5.1.

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MarkP
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Re: SB on older versions of iOS

Post by MarkP »

Thanks, Mr K. If you save your old .ipa files (copy them out of the trash when iTunes upgrades an app on your PC or Mac), you can archive them and install an older version of SB. This is useful if you want to run SB on a device that doesn't support the latest iOS.

That way, you can use an old junk iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 or an old iPad to give to a child to run your SB "game" without worrying about them breaking your "good" iDevice.

With iTunes 12.7, Apple removed local copy app upgrades from iTunes, requiring them to be fetched from the App Store. This change caused many problems with Enterprise Developers, so Apple came out with a SPECIAL version of iTunes, version 12.6.3 (google it). This version supports installing local copies of apps, allowing you to downgrade an app to a previous version if needed.

This has allowed me to perpetually keep the latest "good" release of MiSoft Basic!, version 3.5.2, and not the later "broken" versions.

I would like to be able to run SB on an old iPhone 3G (max iOS of 4.2.1), but I think that even the oldest version of SB that I have archived requires iOS 5.

All of the .ipa files you've archived can only be installed on devices that belong to you, as they are all keyed to your Apple-ID credentials.

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