Personally, I pay much more attention to what is being deprecated, and plan my upgrades with that trailing horizon in mind.
Forget about if the newest release of a class is easier for me (the developer) to use, if it doesn't deliver a significant performance advantage to my end user, I ignore the new features and stick with the oldest version still supported.
Obviously I couldn't do that with an entirely new functionality like iCloud, but for something like MPMoviePlayerController? Forget about it.
I know it can get annoying to check the iOS version before every method call, but well designed code can minimize this greatly.
Personally I'll be supporting iOS 4 until a good bit of the stuff I use in it is deprecated by Apple.
I try to limit my personal consulting to 2-3 clients per month. The majority of my time goes to working on my own projects. I usually love the work, but have to restrict it a bit to stay on track with my main goals.
Also, the "Ultimate" package usually serves as a starting point for the conversation which eventually makes the deal. Still, you've got to market something for people to know it's available.
I also try to help out earlier/younger startups pro-bono from time to time. Gotta keep your karma up somehow...
There's always promise for the future in minimalist mobile device setups like this, but always pain in the present too.
I'm sure our kids will find exercises like this with our early tablets to be laughable.
I'm jealous you got django/python on the tablet! Even if the keyboard proved unworkable.
I'd love to be able to write even a little Objective-C from the iPad. Also, I would find a certain humorous irony to have the xCode IDE simulating an iPhone on my iPad. Oh well.
Forget about if the newest release of a class is easier for me (the developer) to use, if it doesn't deliver a significant performance advantage to my end user, I ignore the new features and stick with the oldest version still supported.
Obviously I couldn't do that with an entirely new functionality like iCloud, but for something like MPMoviePlayerController? Forget about it.
I know it can get annoying to check the iOS version before every method call, but well designed code can minimize this greatly.
Personally I'll be supporting iOS 4 until a good bit of the stuff I use in it is deprecated by Apple.