Using IOS 7.0 Simulator on Xcode 7.2.1

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votes

I would like to make my app compatible with IOS 7.0 but in the preferences --> downloads section, the lowest available version is IOS 8.1 simulator. I'm currently using OSX Yoesmite 10.10.5 wih xcode 7.2.1 running version 9.2.

Does that mean there's no way to test for app compatibility for any versions lower than IOS 8.1?

Edit: I realize it's possible to install older versions of xcode. I want to know if it's possible to download only the simulators on my current xcode, not have an entirely new and different xcode.

1
iosxcode
Possible duplicate of Can I have multiple Xcode versions installed? – Alexander O'Mara
AFAIK, older simulator versions require older Xcode. For older versions: How to download Xcode 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 and get the DMG file? – Alexander O'Mara

1 Answers

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The answer should be NO.

It's not just about the simulator, but the SDK you use to compile the app to run within the simulator. When you use newer SDK to compile, the binary could contain unknown load commands to the binary header, or unknown APIs calls to an older system. That's the main reason you can't run an app built with newer SDK/system on an older OS. Even if it worked, it might still crashed at some point when the needed symbols can't be resolved.

So in order to run/build app for an older version of simulator, you need:

  1. An older version of Xcode (which has older version of SDK)
  2. Or, find out a way to setup your current version of Xcode to compile with the older SDK extracted from an older version of Xcode. (This may and may not work due to the change made to Xcode.)

For the second option, you can google it for how-to.