App Store must be built with the iOS 15 SDK or later, included in Xcode 13 or later

Question

ERROR ITMS-90725: "SDK Version Issue. This app was built with the iOS 14.4 SDK. All iOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with the iOS 15 SDK or later, included in Xcode 13 or later."

In my case, I have a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro .. so max support Xcode version 12.x and Mac OS Catalina. SO cannot install Xcode 13.x

If there's a way to run a build on XCode 12, that has the iOS Deployment Target set to 15 - that would be greatly appreciated. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Odetteodeum

You will need to build with Xcode 13. A cloud build service may be an option. – Sible

Thanks @paulw11 BUT My system is not supported for xcode 13 so any other solution with code 12.x? – Odetteodeum

No. I know it is difficult, but you are using a 10 year old computer. You either need to upgrade to a machine that can run Xcode 13 or, as I suggested, look at cloud-based build solutions – Sible

Answer 1

We also recently got this message from Apple, which is quite an issue for us as our build nodes were not capable of running Xcode 13, and further their own previous posts on the issue only suggested that in order to upload to the App Store apps were required to be built with Xcode 13 after Apr 25, not that they also required linking against the iOS 15 SDK, or that apps already uploaded to the app store before the deadline would require this to be approved for release. We're half way through upgrading our build machines to run a version of MacOS that supports Xcode 13 (causing various issues with other parts of our build of course), installing Xcode 13, and now we have to work out how to upgrade our Xcode project to use the iOS 15 SDK without it breaking even more stuff (actually, initial investigation suggests we don't need to change our project settings at all, it will happen automatically). Happy days, but that's Apple for you (in contrast, most of our MS-stack-based and Android-based applications are using quite old and in some cases out-of-LTS versions of various libraries and build tools, as we haven't had the resources to upgrade yet, but certainly haven't any issues with publishing or running them).

Bajaj

BTW we had Apple accept the app-store submission after rebuilding with Xcode 13. But then we tried with Xcode 13.3, and found out it has a bug that causes it to abort with out of memory errors when bitcode generation is on. In general upgrading our build nodes to Monterey has been a nightmare, lots of changes around JDKs, python availability, default grep behaviour etc. etc. – Bajaj

Answer 2

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=2t1chhp3

Check your iOS SDK version using command

xcodebuild -showsdks

and xcode version with command

/usr/bin/xcodebuild -version

If your xcode is less than 13 and iOS Sdk less than 15 - you need to update it. By the way, here is a useful link, it will help you with dependencies https://developer.apple.com/support/xcode

Psychopathology

Answer 3

I encountered the same issue. I was up-to-date with my iOS, but the Xcode version was an older version and the App Store didn't prompt me for updating Xcode at all, no matter what I tried.

It seems that for some iOS versions you have to manually download Xcode from the Apple Developer portal.

You can alternatively use this link Xcode Releases to see what's the latest Xcode version compatible with the iOS installed on your device.

Amygdaline

Answer 4

iOS Deployment Target is different from SDK version. The former is the minimum version of iOS your app supports, the latter is the SDK version your app was built with. Apple generally requires you to build apps with the latest SDK version for App Store submission, which is usually only possible with the last couple major Xcode and macOS releases.

You can't use the newer SDK with the older version of Xcode. But there are a few options to get your app on the store without upgrading to a newer Mac:

1. Use OCLP to upgrade your Mac to a newer macOS that supports a later version of Xcode. Check support for your model here: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/MODELS.html
2. Try to unofficially run the latest Xcode on your older macOS by opening the .app's package contents, as in this SO answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/69995053
3. Use a cloud CI service to build your app with the newer SDK version, then download the archive and sign/export/upload it using your older version of Xcode. Here's Azure Pipelines code that worked for me:

pool:
  vmImage: 'macOS-13'

steps:
  - task: Xcode@5
    inputs:
      actions: 'archive'
      scheme: '<scheme>'
      sdk: 'iphoneos'
      configuration: '<build config>'
      xcWorkspacePath: '<path to xcworkspace file>'

  - task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
    inputs:
      PathtoPublish: '$(HOME)/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/'

To solve this issue, you ONLY need to build/archive the app on the CI service with the latest SDK, you don't need to sign it or export the .ipa, which keeps the pipeline code simple and avoids the hassle of creating and uploading a signing cert and provisioning profile. Then all you have to do is download the archive artifact from the pipeline, move it to ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives on your machine, and open Xcode -> Organizer -> select archive -> "Distribute App" as you normally would, which will sign, export, and upload it to App Store Connect, and you won't receive the SDK version issue.

Option 1 is good if you want to unofficially update your macOS anyway, but if you don't, options 2 or 3 should work.

Solarism

is the option 2 is opposite to the one you mentioned in this link: stackoverflow.com/a/69995053 – Hudnut

That method may also work to open a newer version of Xcode than supported by your OS. – Solarism

Answer 5

Actually the only solution is to update your Macbook pro. so that you can get a version that allows xcode 15.

Statuette