Removing iPad Support from App

Removing iPad support from app

Answering my own question - no, there is no other way! I ended up creating a decent looking iPad app to fix the problem.

Is there a way to not support my app from iPad or selected iPhone versions?

For restricting your app to only iPhones devices after the app was already published on App Store you should reupload new version of your app to App Store by simply just changing target devices to iPhone only(with different Bundle Identifier of course).

About restricting your app to stop supporting older devices(4,5,5S) you should change your iOS version compatibility. For example iOS 13 is supported on iPhone 6s and newer devices so user won't be able to use it on older devices. Apple should handle this on their own.

There are some alternatives to restrict your app to specific devices with Required device capabilities key which you can find in your Info.plist file. But I don't think apple will accept this, if this features are not actually used in your app.

Here is the documentation about UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities in case you need it.

Expo: Remove iPad support on non published app

In order to upload a new version, you must increase the version and the build number. You can find this if you open the project in Xcode under the General tab and the Identity section. In the same tab, you will see the Deployment Info section where you can untick the iPad. Check the picture attached.

How to remove iPad support from my app?

At a minimum you have to disable support for iPad. To do that:

Click the target in the project explorer. In the General Tab there is a section called Deployment info. For Devices change the selection from Universal to iPhone.

You can then delete the iPad storyboard from the project explorer.

iOS App Submission : remove iPad support

The final answer is:

Once you added iPad support in App submission, there is no way to remove it.

You have to block the access in iPad during App launch by checking UIDevice.currentDevice.userInterfaceIdiom == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad

Exclude iPad support from existing app

The only way to do it is to add some Required Device capabilities which iPad doesn't have. e.g., If you add telephony or sms to the Required Device capabilities in Info.plist of the app, apple will automatically make the app available only for iPhone. As suggested in here.

Xcode, iOS app - How to disable iPad and Mac compatibility?

There is an option to prevent the app from being available to M1 macs in App Store Connect under Pricing and availability

Deselect the checkbox and the app won't appear in the Mac App Store.

Preventing your app from being installed on iPads is more difficult. Even if your app is not a Universal app with direct iPad support, iPads can download and run iPhone apps in a compatibility mode.

You may be able to limit your app availability by specifying telephony for UIDequiredDeviceCapabilities

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