What does "platform" in Pod File refer to?

Question

When you create a new pod file at the top there is "platform :ios, '9.0'" should I set this "platform" value to the deployment target of my project ?

Answer 1

It specifies the minimum OS version you are going to support for the pod project.

If your applications project's deployment target is less than the pod project mentioned iOS version, you will get a warning if there any any APIs which are deprecated in the supported OS versions in the main project.

Answer 2

It specifies the platforms and minimum version of those platforms that you want to support in the app.

See detailed docs at https://guides.cocoapods.org/syntax/podfile.html#platform