[ios] How to check iOS version?

Preferred Approach

In Swift 2.0 Apple added availability checking using a far more convenient syntax (Read more here). Now you can check the OS version with a cleaner syntax:

if #available(iOS 9, *) {
    // Then we are on iOS 9
} else {
    // iOS 8 or earlier
}

This is the preferred over checking respondsToSelector etc (What's New In Swift). Now the compiler will always warn you if you aren't guarding your code properly.


Pre Swift 2.0

New in iOS 8 is NSProcessInfo allowing for better semantic versioning checks.

Deploying on iOS 8 and greater

For minimum deployment targets of iOS 8.0 or above, use NSProcessInfo operatingSystemVersion or isOperatingSystemAtLeastVersion.

This would yield the following:

let minimumVersion = NSOperatingSystemVersion(majorVersion: 8, minorVersion: 1, patchVersion: 2)
if NSProcessInfo().isOperatingSystemAtLeastVersion(minimumVersion) {
    //current version is >= (8.1.2)
} else {
    //current version is < (8.1.2)
}

Deploying on iOS 7

For minimum deployment targets of iOS 7.1 or below, use compare with NSStringCompareOptions.NumericSearch on UIDevice systemVersion.

This would yield:

let minimumVersionString = "3.1.3"
let versionComparison = UIDevice.currentDevice().systemVersion.compare(minimumVersionString, options: .NumericSearch)
switch versionComparison {
    case .OrderedSame, .OrderedDescending:
        //current version is >= (3.1.3)
        break
    case .OrderedAscending:
        //current version is < (3.1.3)
        fallthrough
    default:
        break;
}

More reading at NSHipster.