Apple forces iPhone X compatibility on all iOS apps

Apple has issued an ultimatum to developers of iOS apps – all existing apps should be updated to support the display notch on the iPhone X by July or they may not get updated at all.

According to a statement published on its developer page, “Starting July 2018, all iOS app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the iOS 11 SDK and must support the Super Retina display of iPhone X.”

This is great news for iPhone X users, who still find some content on apps obscured by the notch.

Taking it up a notch

This is also good news for the future notched iPhones that are rumored to launch in 2018.

With support for the notch, main content on all apps will be displayed below it, while supporting material, like stats, will appear on either side.

The carrot dangling on the stick for developers is the ability to increase revenue by using the latest iOS 11 features, like “Core ML, ARKit, new camera APIs, new SiriKit domains, Apple Music integration, drag and drop for iPad, and more”.

However, Apple plans to launch iOS 12 in June, before the July deadline for updating apps with notch-support rolls around. While newer handsets will be able to make the best of the latest features arriving with the new version of the OS, we are yet to find out how this will affect support for the older phones, like the iPhone 5S.