Apple informed developers today of an upcoming update to the minimum Software Development Kit (SDK) requirements for iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS apps. Here are the details.
Apple has published a new post in its Developer News portal, informing developers that starting April 28, 2026, apps submitted to the App Store must meet Apple’s new minimum SDK requirements.
Here’s Apple:
Starting April 28, 2026, apps and games uploaded to App Store Connect need to meet the following minimum requirements:
- iOS and iPadOS apps must be built with the iOS 26 & iPadOS 26 SDK or later
- tvOS apps must be built with the tvOS 26 SDK or later
- visionOS apps must be built with the visionOS 26 SDK or later
- watchOS apps must be built with the watchOS 26 SDK or later
In practice, this also means that developers will need to build their apps using Xcode 26 or later.
What does this mean for users?
Whenever Apple releases a major OS version, like iOS 26, it also releases the iOS 26 SDK, which includes updated APIs, frameworks, and resources built to run on the new system.
As Apple rolls out point releases, like iOS 26.1, iOS 26.2, and so on, it also occasionally updates the system SDKs. Currently, the latest SDK for iOS is version 26.2, the latest SDK for iPadOS is version 26.2, and so on.
Today’s announcement means that starting April 28, developers will only be able to submit apps to the App Store if they meet the new minimum requirements, which is Apple’s way of ensuring that apps available on the App Store are up to date with under-the-hood and user-facing features.
On the other hand, this does not mean that apps will automatically require iOS 26 or later to run. This decision will still be up to the developer. This change affects only the SDK version used to build apps.
And if you’re wondering whether this will mean every updated app will immediately get the Liquid Glass look, that is also up to the developer. By default, apps built with the iOS 26 SDK apply the Liquid Glass look to native UI components, unless the developer explicitly takes steps to prevent that from happening.
To learn more about the upcoming updated minimum requirements, follow this link.
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