Bitcode Enabled - Prepare for iOS 9 (xcode7 beta, iOS 6 support)

Question

I have a static library that support iOS 5 and above, and we're trying to prepare to the upcoming iOS 9.

After searching several sources, I couldn't find direct answers to the following:

1. Is bitcode mandatory? What would happen if I'll set Enable Bitcode = False how would it affect the host app?

This post implies that as a static library, I must enable bitcode.

2. While trying to build the library I get an error: -fembed-bitcode is not supported on versions of iOS prior to 6.0 Can I choose to turn it off for certain iOS version? Is there a proper way to handle it.

Answer 1

No, Bitcode is not currently mandatory unless your app has a watchOS extension.

However, if an app wants to enable Bitcode, then all libraries and frameworks that it uses must also have Bitcode enabled. So if you disable Bitcode for your library, nobody who wants to enable Bitcode will be able to use it.

There's currently no way to conditionally enable/disable Bitcode. This is one of the reasons that many library providers are End-Of-Life on iOS 5 support as of iOS 9.