14 DAY TRIAL // Apple announced on their Developer News website that developers can use the app-slicing feature again for iOS apps running on iOS 9.0.2 or later.
According to Apple, "The issue affecting app slicing has been fixed, and device-specific versions of apps will be delivered when downloaded by users running iOS 9.0.2 or later."
As we reported on September 24, the app-slicing feature suffered a downtime due to an iCloud backup issue affecting the iOS 9 release, where App Store applications would only be restored to the same iOS device model.
Apple kept the promise it made in September when they said that "app slicing will be reenabled with a future software update. No action is needed by you at this time."
Until today's announcement regarding the app-slicing feature's fix, customers who wanted to try to install iOS 9 applications from the iOS App Store would have been able to download only the Universal version of the app, that came with the complete collection of assets included for all iOS device models.
App-slicing allows developers to create smaller apps, targeted at various iOS devices
App-slicing is a development process designed to make it simple for developers to create multiple variants of the same iOS app targeted at different iOS devices.
This allows the end-user to download applications specifically tailored for his device, drastically reducing the size of download by eliminating the assets not needed on the target device.
Sliced apps created using the above technique can be installed using the latest iTunes version or using the App Store application on devices running iOS 9.0 or later. If these requirements are not met, the customers will automatically the full-size Universal iOS app.
The app-slicing development process is part of Apple's app thinning size optimization process of creating smaller and faster to distribute iOS and watchOS applications.
App thinning is also behind iOS 9's faster update process and the larger space available for user content and applications