Apple details new "App Thinning" process in iOS 9
iDavidW
Member Posts: 4
Hey guys, I've read the forums for a while and learned a lot from the wealth of information, but haven't posted anything so far. I haven't seen any posts about this yet, so I figured it's as good a time as any to start contributing!
Apple just put up documentation on a new process called "App Thinning" that will come with XCode and iTunes Connect in iOS 9 this fall. When you upload your app to the store, iTunes Connect will take your app and fork it into multiple versions behind the scenes, one version for each type of device, each version including only the assets needed that device.
Basically, you upload your app like normal, and iTunes Connect automatically makes an iPhone 4S version, iPhone 5 version, iPhone 6 version, iPad 2 version, iPad Air version, etc, and stores them all on the App Store servers separately with no effort required from the developer.
Let's say a user with an iPad 2 goes to download your app. When they click the get/buy button, the App Store sees that they're on an iPad 2 and automatically gives them the iPad 2 version of your app with just the assets and code that works on the iPad 2. In this case, they get a version of your app that excludes retina graphics, and omits code for things like Apple Pay (if your app includes it) that wouldn't even work on that device.
It's meant to reduce the size of apps on your device and it happens automatically behind the scenes when you upload your app to iTunes Connect. XCode also does this locally when you test your apps, so there's no surprises after publishing.
No extra work for us, no need for customers to be aware that anything's different, and users get more open space on their devices for more apps! That's a win-win if I've ever seen one!
It seems like a great idea, although I could see the process causing some problems with engines like GameSalad, although Apple has surely though of this, and likely programmed it to just not do anything if it sees there might be a problem. fingers crossed
I'd check it out myself if I could, but I'm not a registered Apple Dev at the moment, so no Beta stuff for me until the public beta in July lol...
Anybody wanna get the new XCode and iOS to see if a gamesalad project will compile/run properly? 
Edit: Oh yeah, here's the link to Apple's support doc on this.
It's on their normal/public documentation site, no developer account needed to view it! 