Xcode 4 & Mac OSX 10.3?

Question

I'm new at programming on the Mac. I've got me a brand new copy of XCode 4.0. I've got people asking me what versions of MacOSX we'll be able to support but I'm not sure what to tell them.

I see options for selecting an "SDK" and other options for selecting a target version. It seems the lowest I can go is 10.4 though -- even though we'd like to support 10.3, if possible without a lot of pain.

My question is, could anyone give me a quick rundown of how sdk versions and target versions fit into this? As I'm coding, what kind of things do I need to watch out for to make sure I can still support the smallest version of MacOSX? Likewise, how do I figure the G4/G5 (PowerPC) versions of MacOSX into all this? For example, on Windows, if I write an app in c#, I know that all I need to do is make sure an appropriate version of .net framework is installed, regardless of the OS. Does something similar hold true for the MacOSX?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I believe Apple has dropped PowerPC support completely, including Rosetta, in Mac OS X so 10.3 is out of the question.

If you want to support PowerPC, see this related question. It looks like a lot of work.

How can we restore ppc/ppc64 as well as full 10.4/10.5 SDK support to Xcode 4?

With the analogy to the .NET Framework, there isn't anything like that for Mac OS X built-in.