Capacitor IOS support

Capacitor
1

Hi,

I am evaluating Capacitor for my project. According to your documentation
“As a rule, the latest version of Capacitor always supports the last two iOS versions. For example, iOS 11 and iOS 12. For support for older versions of iOS, use an older version of Capacitor (if available).”

does that mean if I open my app based on capacitor in older version of IOS, it will crash? We will not get the support and issues fixed in case if they are from Capacitor? I am not sure how to interpret this statement? Can someone please help?

Thanks,
Deepak

2

NB: I don’t work for or speak for Ionic, so this isn’t an official response; just my personal interpretation.

Let D(X) be the day on which version X of Capacitor was released.
Let A(D(X)) be the most recent version of iOS on day D(X).

The statement you quoted says that version X of Capacitor supports iOS A(D(X)) and iOS A(D(X))-1. So if you need to support an iOS version earlier than A(D(X))-1 where X is the current version of Capacitor (let’s call that version B), you need to hunt through the iOS release history to find out when iOS B+1 was released, and cross-reference that with the Capacitor release history to see what Capacitor version was current on that day, and use that in your project.

3

If I have to support iOS 9+ or in other words 6 versions of iOS releases. I will have to maintain 3 Capacitor versions and build them separately. I guess that will be a maintenance nightmare, isnt it? If there is any update on (Current Capacitor release - 1) then I will have to build just a few set of iOS release. I will have to keep track of all the releases and minor releases. If this is the case then I see it as deal breaker.

4

I suppose that is why most people don’t agree to support 6 iOS versions at once.

5

At the moment, Capacitor supports iOS 11+.
Apps just won’t install on older versions. Xcode won’t allow you to run apps in older devices, and if distributed on the App Store it won’t appear to download in older devices.

Latest cordova (5.x.x) supports iOS 10+, but next major release (6.x.x) is supposed to only support iOS 11+.

So if you need to support iOS 9+, you’ll have to use cordova 4.x.x or build your own thing.

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