10.0.1rc3, building to iOS: Compulsory 18.1, strange splash screen

[Ben Rubinstein]

It's been a long time since I tried to build an iOS app, I thought I'd try to 
get it all working again. Inspired by Panos' release notes, I downloaded 
10.0.1 (rc 3), so at least I wouldn't get the dreaded "Selected Xcode must 
have..." message.

I checked the handy table at 
https://livecode.com/resources/support/ask-a-question/ and confirmed that at 
least LC 10.0.0 (not 10.0.1) would work with Xcode 13.2 (which is what I had) 
on MacOS 13.4+ (I'm running 14.7) for iOS 15.2.  I also read again the lesson 
at 
https://lessons.livecode.com/m/4069/l/565715-how-do-i-become-an-ios-developer, 
which confirmed that LC 10.0.1 would work with any Xcode from 12.4 on.

After a few false starts, I decided to explicitly launch Xcode and check it 
was all running. Sneaky Apple! It automatically updated itself to 16.1!

However, it still shows that it has the 15.2 simulator, and indeed I can 
launch the simulator.

However when I re-launch LC 10.0.1rc3, create a new stack with a single 
control on it, set the standalone settings build for iOS, iPod and iPhone, 
15.0 or later; set the Test Target to iPhone Simulator 15.2, and click Test, 
the result is this message:

	Unable to build app for simulation: failed to create launch screen: /* 
com.apple.ibtool.errors */
	/var/folders/y7/gddpm8ys0892ztpvq78knn2m0000gq/T/Temporaryltems/tmp.93209.5TVqiHma/trashme.app/LaunchScreen.storyboard:
	error: iOS 18.1 Platform Not Installed.

I really don't want to build for iOS 18 - I only want to build an app for my 
own phone, which doesn't support 18.1 - but at this stage would be happy if I 
could just get to the next stage. So I installed iOS 18.0 Simulator from the 
Xcode Settings>Components window.

Same result.

Finally I went to Apple's dev site, and downloaded the 18.1 Simulator and 
installed it from the command line.

Success! And it successfully built an app that launched on the 15.2 simulator; 
and (after another couple of days, trawling through Panos' helpful responses 
on various forum postings etc) also on my phone running iOS 17.

So the first issue is why the 18.1 iOS Simulator is required, in order to 
build for any other iOS version.

However, there is a remaining oddity; when the app launches, on the simulator 
or my real device, the splash screen is a cropped image of the dialog bearing 
the above message:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/de06nj2fkxay6nsgb97qp/Screenshot-2024-12-12-at-18.38.03.png?rlkey=d70pjfg7msik4e5f9dsgl89zm&dl=0

How curious. At some point I thought, well what happens if I actually take the 
trouble to assign a splash screen? So I looked at the Standalone Settings, and 
it turned out that there was a file assigned for the Launch image, and in fact 
it was a screenshot I'd made of that dialog, while I was working through the 
issue.

Mystery solved I thought, perhaps at some point I carelessly assigned that and 
had forgotten about it by the time I finally got a working build. So I deleted 
it. Same result! Then I replaced it with another image.

Now when I launch the app, it first shows the picture of the error dialog, 
then the newly selected launch image. If I delete the launch image, it just 
has the error dialog as splash screen. Replace with a different image, I get 
the two-stage splash as before; first the image of the error dialog, then my 
chosen image. (All this persists through quitting and relaunching LC, btw.)

Has anyone else seen something like this?

Ben