by Chadwick Wood
November 17th, 2022
Patch Base for Mac v1.19.6 and Patch Base for iPad v3.25.4 are both out now, offering bug fixes for the Roland JD-Xi editor.
Unfortunately, these updates will probably be the last that support iOS 9 and iOS 10 on iPad, and MacOS 10.12. The latest version of Apple's development tools, XCode 14, no longer allows me to support these platforms. From the release notes of XCode 14:
Building for deployment to OS releases older than macOS 10.13, iOS 11, tvOS 11, and watchOS 4 is no longer supported.
For now, I'm still using XCode 13 for Patch Base development in order to support these older platforms. But using an older version of XCode means that I can't easily test on the newest versions of Apple's operating systems, which are what the vast majority of users of Patch Base have. So at some point, I have to upgrade.
And beyond that, even if I continued using an older version of XCode for development, at some point I would not be able to update Patch Base for iPad using that older version of XCode, as that is another Apple policy; earlier this year (March 15th, 2022), Apple announced that all App Store submissions will need to be built using XCode 13. A similar announcement requiring XCode 14 is undoubtedly on the horizon.
I regret having to drop support for these older platforms. The spirit of Patch Base is to offer modern support for older machines, both synthesizers, and computers. I have taken many steps over the years to ensure that I can still support iOS 9, an operating system that was first released in 2015. And when Patch Base for Mac was released, it offered support for versions of MacOS that were several years older than what was current at the time.
But at some point, I'm just fighting against the Apple tide, and in this instance it is time to let go and move on.