Apple’s February 1st Deadline and Xamarin 64-bit Support

In October, Apple announced that starting in February, submissions to the App Store must be built against the iOS 8 SDK and must include 64-bit support. Additionally, apps already published in the App Store must meet the requirements as of June 1st, 2015.

We have made significant progress on our Unified API that brings improved code-sharing for our Mac and iOS products as well as 64-bit support to those platforms. We expect the Stable release of our Unified API to be released in mid-January, so please watch for communications about that release to migrate your iOS apps to the Unified API. The migration should not take more than a day for most apps.

What you need to know:

• Today: The latest Unified API build is available on our Alpha channel, and we strongly encourage all library developers to update any NuGet, Components, or other published libraries they maintain for iOS to use the Unified API. If you are publishing an iOS Component in the Xamarin Component Store, please use this alpha release to update and submit your updated Component this month. The Unified API template previews currently in Stable are deprecated and should not be used.
• Mid-January: Unified API will be published on our Stable channel in Xamarin Studio and Visual Studio, and all Xamarin published Components in our Component Store will be upgraded to support the Unified API. This is when we recommend you start porting your iOS apps to 64-bit. This release contains a migration assistant for Xamarin Studio and Visual Studio that will upgrade your Classic 32-bit projects to dual 32/64 with Unified APIs.
• February 1st: All new apps and app updates published to the Apple App Store must be built with 64-bit support.

What To Do Today:

If you are a developer with NuGets, Components, or Plugins that target iOS, you should get started right away porting your library to 64-bit with the Unified API release currently in the Alpha channel so that your library is ready to be consumed in 64-bit applications. The below resources can help you.

If you are an app developer, you should prepare now, and then migrate your app in early January when the current version of the Unified API is released to the Stable channel. The below resources can help you prepare.

We have a full guide on our documentation site to help you plan what you need to do. Here are a few important topics to read through before you start your migration.

• Unified API Overview: New and Deprecated APIs
• Using the new Native Types
• Updating Existing Apps to Unified API

We have provided simple manual migration steps to upgrade, or you can use our migration assistant to handle most of the heavy lifting for you.

Installation

• Download and install Xcode 6.1 from iOS Developer Center or the App Store.
• Install it at the default location.
• Switch the Xamarin Studio Updater channel to the “Alpha” channel.
• Install the Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin Studio updates.

Additionally, Windows users with Visual Studio should:

• Switch the Visual Studio Xamarin Updater Channel to “Alpha”.
• Install the Visual Studio extension update.

To learn more, be sure to read our full Xamarin.iOS 8.6 release notes and documentation.