iOS 5 does NOT support Base Internationalization.

I learnt this the hard way (and partly Apple’s fault).

After upgrading my project to use Base Internationalization, I release a new version, and shortly, my users complained of startup crash.

New release, crash on startup

You might be wondering:

Didn’t you test your app?

I did test, but only with Simulator. I ran on Simulator with iOS 5, and also tested on my real device with iOS 6.0.

It didn’t crash on Simulator with iOS 5.

However, on a real iPhone with iOS 5, it crashed on startup.

Exception is raised from [UINib instantiateWithOwner:options:], with the error log:

Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException', 
reason: 'Could not load NIB in bundle: 'NSBundle 
</var/mobile/Applications/***/***.app> (loaded)' with name 'MainWindow''

This meant that the app could not find MainWindow.xib.

It is strange that the xib is not copied, especially when I am prudent to do clean build and run.

The culprit

Base Internationalization was introduced in iOS 6. It is an awesome feature because: instead of having N NIB files for N languages, you need just 1 base NIB file with N localization.strings.

The biggest change I had for the release was Base Internationalization.

Researching into the problem, I realized Base Internationalization is supported only from iOS 6.

Xcode will let you release the app with any minimum deployment target, without any warning. But once the app starts and load a xib, it will crash as it can’t find the xib.

The Solution

The change is reversible.

Select the XIB and look under File Inspector.

You can change each of the localization.strings back to XIB. Then remove the Base (when prompted, copied it to English).

Lessons Learnt

• Simulator is not exactly like real device

• Base Internationalization is awesome, but is not advised to be used

• Many users stick with iOS 5 because of Map app. Perhaps they will upgrade in ~2014 as Apple continues to improve.