Is there any particular reason on why FirebaseAI package minimum deployment is iOS 15.0?

[psbpd21]

Hi, Im currently building an app with a minimum deployment target of iOS 13.0. I wanted to try and implement AI in my app using FirebaseAI. However, it seems that the minimum deployment of the package is iOS 15.0. Is there any particular reason on why the minimum deployment target is iOS 15.0?

[paulb777]

@psbpd21 Thanks for the question. Many of the Firebase AI Logic streaming APIs require iOS 15+ APIs for their implementation. cc: @andrewheard

[andrewheard]

Hi @psbpd21, we chose iOS 15 as the minimum deployment target for a few reasons:

• As @paulb777 said, the streaming API implementations use iOS 15+ APIs (e.g., URLSession.AsyncBytes).
  • Note: I haven't audited the implementations to verify but the non-streaming implementations may not rely on any iOS 15+ features (most are 13+).
• Xcode 16 and 26 only officially support iOS 15, though lower deployment targets continue to build.
• All iOS devices that can run iOS 13 or iOS 14 can be upgraded to iOS 15.
  • For this reason, Apple has not released security updates for iOS 13 or iOS 14 since 2020-09-01 and 2021-10-26, respectively.
  • It would be difficult for us to diagnose iOS 13 or 14-specific issues since devices cannot be downgraded from iOS 15.
  • Our own metrics show that iOS 13 and 14 usage is very low.

Hopefully this explains our reasoning process for choosing iOS 15+ as the minimum deployment target. I'd be curious to know if your metrics show higher iOS 13/14 usage in case it differs from our own.

[psbpd21]

Thanks @paulb777 @andrewheard for the answers. I agree that the non-streaming implementations may not rely on any iOS 15+ features that is why i raised this question in the first place. But, I do agree that targeting iOS 15 makes sense since most of the implementations requires iOS15+ API.

After i checked my metrics, i realized that the oldest device that uses my app is an iPhone X and it does support iOS 15. So I think is safe to say that i can update my minimum deployment target to iOS 15.