How to build an app with iOS SDK 6.1 in Xcode 5
When you update to Xcode 5, you get all of the new Xcode and iOS 7 goodness, which is great if you are ready to handle that much goodness. If you have to maintain compatibility with older applications, it can be a problem as the iOS 7 SDK will wreak havoc with your application.
The easier path for now is to just set your project to specifically build against the iOS SDK 6.1 instead of just using the “Latest SDK” entry, and then to either copy or put a symbolic link in the Xcode 5 app bundle to the SDK living in the old Xcode 4.x bundle. Personally, I have found this Stack Overflow post to be handy:
How to point Xcode to my 10.6 SDK so it can be used as a “Base SDK”?
In addition, the answer by Rob Napier references a script that you can use to automatically put these symlinks back into the Xcode 5 bundle when you update the app:
Links Xcode SDKs from the /SDKs directory
EDIT on 12/21/2013: Keep in mind this all becomes a moot point when, on February 1, 2014, Apple will only allow apps to be published to the App Store that have been built with the iOS SDK 7.0 or newer (here’s the link to the article in the iOS Developer Center).
BTW, Happy Birthday to Jim Leyland, the baseball manager who I admired greatly from his time managing the Pittsburgh Pirates.