Supporting iOS 7 with iOS 8 compatible app that includes extensions

Question

I have built an app for iOS 8 using the Today widget extension. I was wondering how to make sure that people with iOS 7 could still download and use the app.

Do I make the Today widget development target iOS 8 but the actual app development target iOS 7?

Answer 1

You're on the right track: The app needs to be built with the iOS 8 SDK and can have an earlier deployment target. The widget's deployment target is iOS 8, and it will be ignored on iOS 7 devices. You can easily verify that in the simulator, too.

If you share code between the widget and the app, this code needs to work in iOS 7 and 8, obviously. Specifically, if you use frameworks to share code between your app and the widget (which is recommended by Apple), you should read this document. However, it seems to be easier to just not use (own, embedded) frameworks as long as you target iOS 7.