Not targeting iPad2 and iPad3?

This may be a dumb question. Can I make my app not available for certain iOS devices (old phones, and old tablets?). It's a 3d game (for toddlers) and runs like a boss on newer devices and looks great. On older devices (especially the iPad2) it gets bad frame rates (22-26 fps). I would simply like to skip those devices!

I've looked at my iTunes connect settings and all that, and saw nothing, so I assume there is no way to do this.

Thanks,
Seth

 

Unfortunately no. You can weed out some devices by selecting a much newer iOS version as the minimum target (e.g. 8) and this will basically mean iPhone 5 and newer only. The iPad 2 is supported with iOS 8 (and 9) so that won't work.

 

Thank you! I'm working on a solution to turn off features selectively for a few of the older devices. Will have to see how it goes (I'm thinking shadows, etc).

Seth

 

The nearest you can get is by requiring OpenGL ES3 or even Metal, but that might rule out too many devices since it basically means iPad Air or newer. Some very capable phones would also not be included.

See https://developer.apple.com/library...tibilityMatrix/DeviceCompatibilityMatrix.html
Maybe you can find something there. One option that might get rejected is to require low-power BlueTooth. It could conceivably be accepted if you support gamepads

 

Good angle on the bluetooth! That said my game is for Toddlers and very little kids... poke and play would be best how to describe the controls!

 

Will toddlers care if a game is running at 24FPS? That's like a movie!

 

True... but I didn't want to get rejected for low FPS (not sure where they cut you off), and it was a bit choppy.

I actually got a full 30 fps with some headway (less than 100% GPU utilization, which I assume will translate to lower battery and heat). I was using the "standard" shader, and some "standard specular" shaders, I switched to the mobile vertex lit ones and presto, no more issues. It's not as pretty as the standard shader, but in this case, the "saturated and simple coloring" work for the game.

I didn't even look at these shaders because my googling told me that the standard shader in Unity 5 was really good. I was shocked to see the difference in performance. If one was trying to go with a super realistic look and needed the standard shader you would really have to be careful on iOS or target much much newer (metal) devices.

 

- Write on top of description that performance on iPad 2 won't be good and that you recommend devices with at least 1GB RAM.
- Set resolution on iPad 3 to 1024x768.

Has Apple ever rejected a game because of bad FPS on old devices? I doubt that and I can't remember seeing that in the official developer FAQ.

I think it is highly unlikely that they will test the game on such old devices. They want to sell new devices, not old ones. The usual review-time is pretty short. I often saw an App status switching from waiting-for-review to in-review and just 5 minutes later it was accepted.

 

Beside that, I've started a little survey 2 weeks ago and asked people who wait for my game several questions. Also about the devices they want to play the game on. Devices with Apple A5 like iPad2, iPad 3, iPhone 4S and iPad mini 1 are still common – it is worth to support them.

 

I'm curious -- did you try the Standard shader with no shadows? Shadows are pretty demanding....and I would like to believe that the Standard shader was really good, mobile-performance-wise.

 

Unity provide hardware stats which I think are useful.

http://hwstats.unity3d.com/mobile/device-ios.html

 

I tried it with no shadows and that was only good for about 1-2FPS on the iPad2. I thought it would be more.

The mobile shader (vertex lit with 1 directional light), does shadows and got me from 24FPS and 100% usage on the GPU up to 30FPS with just 66% GPU usage. That is a huge difference. You can mix shaders. I do still use the standard shader for some objects like a jet which used maps to make some portions metallic. But the jet and the ice cream truck are small parts of the screen.

 

Thank you for the chart! I agree, I canvassed my friends and came up with lots of gen1 ipad mini's and ipad2's. So, I had to support it.

I wrote some custom detection code after my cut scene (that displays at full resolution) that drops the iPad2 to 800x600 and the iPad3 (gutless wonder) down to 1600x1200 and I'm getting 30fps with the mobile shaders, but around 22-25 depending on where I am in the scene with the standard shader.

 

I don't trust those stats. They are Unity and developer centric. (all those test devices and apps that never saw the light of the store are included)

I always turn those off because usually people dislike any kind of phoning home.