To what extent does 'optimized for iOS7' refer to the iOS7 UI?

Question

Apple's announcement of the 'Optimized for iOS7' mandate is as follows:

https://developer.apple.com/news/index.php?id=12172013a

Starting February 1, new apps and app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the latest version of Xcode 5 and must be optimized for iOS 7. Learn more about preparing your apps by reviewing the iOS Human Interface Guidelines.

There's been several questions regarding this already regarding the Xcode part, which seems fairly straight-forward (use Xcode 5!)

But the 'optimized for' part along with the HIGs is much more vague.

It appears that some interpret this to mean "It has to look like a native iOS7 app...Helvetica Thin, extremely flat icons, translucency, etc"

But I find that hard to accept given how broad app UIs tend to be. I don't see EA Sports changing all their UIs to match, for example. Has apple published any clarifying documentation in regards to what they mean by 'optimized for' and how closely the UI must adhere to iOS7 conventions and to what range of apps this would apply to (all apps? Only native apps? HTML5 apps? Games? etc.)?

Answer 1

One current completely unsupported working hypothesis seems to be that, as of Feb 1st, an iOS app has to be built with the iOS 7 as Base SDK, and that the newer iOS 7 metrics can't break anything in the UI (as in non-operable buttons or alerts, views partially-hidden under the status bar or behind tool bars, text half off-screen, etc.), and the app can't attempt to call any deprecated APIs removed from iOS 7.

Answer 2

Coming from someone who has submitted a lot of apps, this isn't something I would see Apple enforcing unless you stray very far from the iOS 7 look and feel.

For example, I could imagine someone trying to submit an application that looks & feels a lot like an iOS 6 app, which is something they wouldn't want (confusing). Or, imagine somebody creating a new UIDatePicker that looks like the iOS 6 date picker (confusing). They're simply looking for consistency.

So, rule of thumb when it comes to HIG--use what apple provides. For custom views, respect the platform and don't confuse the user.

More specifics https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html