Is Xcode 5 Asset Catalog backwards compatible with pre-iOS 7?

Question

Xcode 5 introduced Asset Catalog, which seems very cool. However I haven't find much information about it. Specifically, I'm interested whether the usage of Asset Catalog has any impact on the app regarding its compatibility.

Is Asset Catalog iOS 7 specific feature (i.e. iOS has to be able to handle it) or it is just convenience tool of Xcode?

Also, I will be grateful for any relevant information resources / links.

Thank you for answers

Answer 1

Yes, it is backwards compatible.

The documentation says:

Xcode 5 provides different functionality for asset catalogs depending on the deployment target for your project:

• For all projects, individual images can be loaded using set names.
• For projects with a deployment target of iOS 7, Xcode compiles your asset catalogs into a runtime binary file format that reduces the download time for your app.

The new binary file format is only used if your deployment target is set to iOS 7. Otherwise it defaults back to simply putting all of the individual image files into your resources folder, as before.

Answer 2

Yes, it's definitely compatible with iOS6. Not sure about 5.

However, if you use it with earlier than 7.0 then you are not able to use the resizable images feature of asset catalogs.