[Development] Supported platforms for Qt 5.8

[Petroules Jake]

On Feb 19, 2016, at 11:38 PM, Petroules Jake <Jake.Petroules at theqtcompany.com<mailto:Jake.Petroules at theqtcompany.com>> wrote:

* We require the latest Xcode toolchain and OS X on the Mac for compiling (see separate mailing list thread). We support deployment to OS X 10.9 and later (dropping 10.8)

+1

* On iOS, we also require the latest Xcode toolchain for compiling. We continue with iOS 7 as the minimum supported version for deployment.

"Continue" with iOS 7? It's currently iOS 6 in both 5.7 and dev branches. However, I wholeheartedly approve bumping it to 7.

This puts us at a minimum of "last four releases" (by the time 5.8 is released) for both OS X and iOS. However I'd argue that iOS's schedule should be treated a little more aggressively given its extremely fast upgrade cycle compared to all other platforms.

As of February 8th, 2016, the iOS version distribution (as measured by Apple - https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/) is as follows:
- iOS 9 - 77%
- iOS 8 - 17%
- iOS 7 and earlier - 6%

By the time Qt 5.8 is released, iOS 10 will have just been released and iOS 8's market share will almost certainly less than 5%, as iOS 7's is now. In that case is there really much point supporting iOS 7 (or even 8)?

iOS 8 was one of the biggest releases API-wise and so we would be able to reduce effort significantly by dropping v7. The current version of Xcode also provides no simulators for iOS prior to 8.1.

Lars, Apple people, can you please provide your input here?
--
Jake Petroules - jake.petroules at theqtcompany.com<mailto:jake.petroules at theqtcompany.com>
Consulting Services Engineer - The Qt Company

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