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As I'm going to upload my first app on the Apple App store and do not own an iPhone. From what I understand, owning and bundling your app on an Apple Device is a required phase of the app creation process on x-code.

I'm wondering if an iPod Touch 5th generation is a good enough device for running and running my bundled app.

Appart from the screen size difference (the iPod touch 5th generation is 4") and minor differences, is an iPod Touch 5th gen an adequate device for ios development or must it obligatorily be an iphone?

PS: the only similar question I found dated from 2011, just want to be sure it's sill ok in 2018 before buying an iPod Touch and the apple developer licence. Will an iPod touch suffice for testing iOS apps?

PSS: I'm using react-native (without expo) but I guess it's not relevant in the question.

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If you define 'adequate' as meaning you can use it then the answer is yes. You can develop and deploy to the App Store with only testing on 32-bit devices as long you use the latest version of Xcode and include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Many people have deployed to the App Store without having any device to test their app.

When you archive your app thru Xcode, be sure to use the Generic iOS Device scheme. You can't archive your app when it's pointing to the simulator. Apple has good documentation about how to prepare your app for the App Store.

As of iOS 11, Apple dropped support for only 32-bit apps but you can include them for backward compatibility.

You will be taking a risk that your app will not function correctly, or crash, on a real device with this approach. This might not be a big deal for you because it's your first app. Most indie developers use their first app as a test to figure out how to build and deploy on the App Store.

If the app crashes during the App Store review process, your app will be rejected. If users experience app crashes or other unexplained errors, they can leave negative reviews. If your goal is to create more apps for the App Store, and even sell them, you'll want to invest in an iPhone (at least) and do proper testing.

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No, an iPod 5th gen would not work for testing your app for these reasons:

  1. Software incapabilities. The 5th generation iPod came out in 2012 and is using a 32 bit architecture, therefore, it is unable to update to software requiring a 64 bit architecture. Which means it is stuck at iOS 9.

Why this matters:

iOS 10-11 brought many new features and speed improvements to all apple devices. If you are testing your product on a device that does not have these enhancements, you will not be able to provide a quality product to people using the newer versions of iOS

  1. Processor problems. The iPod 5th gen came with Apple's A5 chip and a 32bit chip

Why this matters:

Plain and simple, your iPod will crash when it runs the app.

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