Open Radar

 
Summary:

It would be great to be able to provide different launch images for an app to handle an app running on different versions of iOS. According to the HIG, launch images should mimic the full UI of the first view of the app. Stock UI elements (UIToolbars, UIBarButtonItems, etc.) look different in iOS 6 to how they looked in iOS 5 and below, so if an app uses stock UI elements and has its launch image mimic those UI elements, the launch image will look out of place either on iOS 5 (and below) or iOS 6 (and above). It would be great to be able to provide different launch images for different versions of iOS.

Steps to Reproduce:

Try to have different launch images for certain versions of iOS to match the different looks of default UI elements in iOS over time.

Expected Results:

Different launch images are shown based on which version of iOS the app is running on.

Actual Results:

NOPE! You can either have old n' busted glossy UI elements in your launch image in iOS 6, or new hotness matte UI elements in your launch image in iOS 5 and below.

Regression:

This only became an issue when the look of default UI elements changed in iOS 6 (not that I'm complaining).

Notes:

One simple solution that doesn't even touch the app's Info.plist could be to use part of the launch image's filename to determine which version of iOS it should be shown on. Currently, launch images filenames are of the form "<basename><usage_specific_modifiers><scale_modifier><device_modifier>.png". Adding an additional modifier for OS version might result in filenames being of the form "<basename><usage_specific_modifiers><scale_modifier><device_modifier><os_version_modifier>.png". This is the simplest solution I could come up with because I am a dummy. Another alternative might be to have an entry in the app's Info.plist declaring which launch image should be used for any given version of iOS, falling back to the default launch image if there's nothing in the Info.plist entry for the version of iOS that the app is running on.