Drop support for iOS 14
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	Tsevener
	Jul 28 2023, 7:26 PM

Description

Task from Product

Drop support for iOS 14

Additional notes

If we historically sent a communication to users about dropping support, we should follow those steps here
When iOS 17 is released publicly released mid-September we will revive the discussion of dropping support for iOS 15

Reference Section

It's been a while since we dropped support for an OS version. With iOS 17 coming out, we should try to drop one or two major versions to ease our maintenance load and open up the possibility of using newer features.

Below is a historical record of when we have dropped OS support:

iOS 9 released: September 2015
iOS 9 app support end: December 2017 (~2 years after release)

https://github.com/wikimedia/wikipedia-ios/pull/1963

iOS 10 released: Sept 2016
iOS 10 app support end: August 7, 2018 (~2 years after release)

https://github.com/wikimedia/wikipedia-ios/pull/2553

iOS 11 released: Sept 2017
iOS 11 app support end: June 7, 2020 (~3 years after release)

https://github.com/wikimedia/wikipedia-ios/pull/3611

iOS 12 released: Sept 2018
iOS 12 app support end: Sept 2021 (~3 years after release)

https://github.com/wikimedia/wikipedia-ios/pull/4029

iOS 13 released: Sept 2019
iOS 13 app support end: Nov 2022 (~3 years after release)

https://github.com/wikimedia/wikipedia-ios/pull/4391

iOS 14 released: Sept 2020
iOS 14 app support end: not yet (will be 3 years September 2023)

iOS 15 released: Sept 2021
iOS 15 app support end: not yet (will be 2 years September 2023)

QA Notes

General regression tested needed on this. If you have an iOS 14 device, confirm you cannot install the latest TestFlight version on it.

Related Objects

Mentioned In: T347778: Release 7.4.2

Event Timeline

Tsevener created this task.Jul 28 2023, 7:26 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptJul 28 2023, 7:26 PM

@SNowick_WMF would you mind sharing usage data for iOS 14 and 15?

JTannerWMF triaged this task as Medium priority.Jul 28 2023, 8:12 PM

JTannerWMF moved this task from Tasks from Product Backlog to Needs Analytics on the iOS Release FY2023-24 (Archive) board.

@JTannerWMF and @Tsevener -
Usage from 90 days of data: 14 = .4% of unique users and 15 = 4.7% of unique users.

Using data from event.app_session (count unique users by iOS version in user_agent_map, date range 2023-05-02 to 2023-07-30) shows the following distribution:

os_major	n_unique_users	% Distribution by OS major
17	4535	3.3%
16	104712	77.2%
15	6388	4.7%
14	481	0.4%.
'-'	19476	14.4%

Note: We will want to investigate the high count of users with - values (not NULL) in os_major and os_minor, devs may have more insight into why this happens.

14/15 Unique Users in 2023-07 (last 30 days of data) only:

os_major	n_unique_users
14	424
15	5793

@Dmantena Following up on date data when we started seeing '-' values in os_major and os_minor - a few in 2023-05 but started ramping up after 2023-06-02. Lmk if there are more data points you need me to pull to investigate this

Until we get the '-' lets wait on this

May be worth taking a look at App Store analytics too (https://appstoreconnect.apple.com/analytics) which provides metrics for users that have opted in on an OS-level.

Based on https://appstoreconnect.apple.com/analytics) I feel comfortable dropping for support for iOS 14. When iOS 17 is released we can revisit dropping 15.

JTannerWMF removed SNowick_WMF as the assignee of this task.Aug 1 2023, 9:21 PM

JTannerWMF updated the task description. (Show Details)

JTannerWMF moved this task from Needs Analytics to Ready for Development on the iOS Release FY2023-24 (Archive) board.

JTannerWMF renamed this task from Evaluate dropping iOS 14 & 15 support to Drop support for iOS 14.Aug 1 2023, 9:28 PM

Apple App Store Data - Devices by OS Version. Note counts are much higher as these are not unique devices but all but all devices by day (2023-05-03 to 2023-07-31) so counts are duplicated. Link to Data