Please do not post the same thing multiple times. The board software automatically flags certain posts as needing moderator attention. This happens the most often for new users. I'm pretty sure this is made clear at the time you attempt to post. Posting the same thing over and over again just makes that many more posts the moderators have to weed through later. This makes us sad. Don't make us sad. If your post/thread doesn't appear, just wait a while. Don't post it again. If it hasn't shown up by the next day, then you can try again. I normally go through posts in the mornings, and try to check a few times throughout the day, but I'm not here 24/7. There will typically be a significant delay before posts are approved. Just be patient.
I believe you're referring to method swizzling. However, it's very complicated and not very safe. Better to just include some logic in your getter method to determine which IV's value should be returned. Better yet, keep the properties only with their corresponding IVs and don't mix them up, as I can see this becoming a logical nightmare when you end up with custom getters all over the place which are swizzled or otherwise manipulated into returning values for different IVs. It would be really, really hard to keep track of.
UI elements have remained consistent across iOS versions apart from some cosmetic changes (e.g. the rounded UISwitch which was introduced in iOS 5).
To get the best visual appearance on retina displays, you should add double resolution versions of all images you are using in your app.
To support the iPhone 5's taller screen, you need to add an iPhone 5 resolution launch image to prevent letterboxing, and then adjust your views to fit the iPhone 5 screen. This means either coding your UIs with logic to detect the screen size and adjust themselves accordingly, use auto layout type features, or building separate xibs for each device type.
As for supporting the newer iOS versions, you'll have to just test all the features of your app on each iOS version and fix anything which doesn't work on the newer versions.
TBH, I found reading through documentation without a specific purpose too difficult (I'm dyslexic). So basically, everything I know about iOS development has resulted from the following process:
1. Google what I want to do. For example I might just stick "create uitabviewcontroller in code" into Google 2a. Look for a tutorial and follow it. 2b. Look for a YouTube video demonstration and watch it, then try to reproduce it 3. Look up any specific classes, methods and properties I've used in the documentation if I need to clarify anything
The advantage of doing it this way is that you can get up and running more quickly with specific features. The disadvantage is that you get a less holistic understanding. In my case, I put the pieces together over time and now feel I have a solid understanding of the API.
Whichever method you choose, it's going to take time.
