Is it OK to state "Trial" in the title of my app in the App Store?
I know price mentions are considered illegal words (including "Free").
If it's not, how can one match customer exceptions regarding the app?
Thank you.
Section 2.2 of Apple's review guidelines says that trial apps don't belong in their App store.
Their do appear to be apps in the iOS App store that use the word "trial" for apps that support sport time trials, medical trials, and legal trials, etc. So use of the word in that sense might potentially be allowed.
Related
So I already have 2 versions out on appstore..
One app is a free but limited version.
The other is a paid unlimited. The basic layout..
I have had questions from companies wanting to buy the app and give to their employees. So they don't have to buy the app with their personal accounts..
So I was thinking of releasing a 3rd version that prompts the user for a license key on first start, if the key is valid the app starts and works until reinstalled or w/e. If the key is invalid the app just keeps prompting for a valid license.
Now I remembered reading somewhere that apple wouldn't allow apps that had no public function or something like that. Which this app wont have unless u have a valid license..
But since I do also provide a valid public version of the app, will this one get accepted? Or have they removed theese rules?
Any insight in the matter would be helpful!
Edit:
Forgot to mention that the reason im looking to use the license is because i have the same app for android and want the companies to be able to buy for both device types, not just apple devices.
Thanks
I believe you should use the B2B functionality in ITunes Connect: http://developer.apple.com/support/ios/volume-purchase-program.html
Also check: https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/volume/
I did something very similar to this some time ago, they seemed ok with it (then at least), they just asked for a license key in the complementary info (during the app submission) to go through all their usual validation tests.
Klassmating has an app in the app store that has no public functionality unless you are a student at a specific university. So it seems like you can have apps like that.
Without knowing exactly, I would assume Apple would reject such an app from the store (mainly because it would allow you to sell applications "behind their back" - i.e. sell licence keys and not using in-app purchase) :-)
However, there are two possible solutions to your problem that come to my mind:
Create and distribute gift codes (would be a problem if you had to give out too many of them).
Do an ad-hoc distribution of your app to the companies. Basically they would need your application bundle and an ad-hoc mobile provision file. Then they can simply install your application by dragging it to iTunes.
There are different official iPhone application distribution methods.
In which for your current requirement,I suppose you can use the Custom B2B Apps,where you can deliver apps directly to your business customers who have a Volume Purchase Program account.You can get more information from the link provided above.
cheers!
Yes, I too have had an app in the app store which works like this. You have to provide them with a key/licence to access the app functionality so they can test it fully.
I've had an app rejected for this very reason - required a username and password, not a licence key, but was free. They said in contravened the licence terms regarding in app purchases.
Mine allowed time limited free trials from within the app, but full functionality was restricted to purchases outside the app. Apple wanted their 30% cut of the subscription cost so it was no dice for us.
On the other hand, the app store review process is seemingly entirely random, so who knows.
I have developed five apps with name of five different football teams. Which shows event schedule of respective team. Apple rejected all of them and giving reason
"Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program"
Now, I have seen following Apps are almost same and available on AppStore
http://itunes.apple.com/pk/app/brookwood-medical-center/id434593012?mt=8
http://itunes.apple.com/pk/app/doctors-hospital-of-manteca/id430928072?mt=8
http://itunes.apple.com/pk/app/doctors-medical-center-modesto/id447790452?mt=8
Now what is developer spamming? Anybody can explain it?
It is not a technical question, but it is probably related to your code, so :
I think Apple rejects your applications for that reason when you use the same code base (or a close code base) for multiple applications, presented as different apps.
they must be thinking your are creating the same app under different names to gain more visibility in the store.
You should contact them and try to explain your case, or change your apps code and UI significantly enough to prove them these apps are different.
Create one football app and allow the user to buy teams as in app purchases.
Let the user have one team included in the price of the app.
Now, I have seen following Apps are almost same and available on AppStore
This is a common mistake. You can not use the existence of apps in the iOS App Store as any sort of precedent. These apps may have been accepted by accident, or under a previous interpretation of Apple's rules, which will not apply to your submissions.
Go by the current interpretation of the App store guidelines.
Maybe sell your apps to the respective teams so that you won't be submitting multiple apps, or running into any trademark licensing problems.
"Developer spamming" as explained by App Store Review Guidelines:
Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps
will be removed from the iOS Developer Program
I'm going to develop an iPhone app, and want to make sure what I want to do is possible, and will be approved by Apple.
I'm going to create an app that will be fully branded on per submission basis. I want to have one app per customer (our customers are companies) with their logo, skin, etc.
This apps will be downloaded and installed by the employees of each one of our customers.
In other words, we would use the same base code (logic doesn't change), but will brand it for each customer. Something similar to what Magento (http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/mobile) does, they created an Ecommerce mobile app, and they brand it to their customer, but the app logic remains the same.
Would Apple consider this as duplicate apps? what is the best way to do it?
Thanks in advance.
I would have said "no problem" until I read:
This apps will be downloaded and
installed by the employees of each one
of our customers
It sounds like what your creating is (a set of) private applications, which are intended to be targeted only to specific users - i.e. employees of the company.
Apple has a separate "enterprise" development program geared towards this - allowing developers to deploy programs for their own company - and do it outside of the App Store.
If your program is very specific towards the companies, Apple may make you do this - rather than putting the Apps up for general consumption on the App store.
See here for more details:
http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/enterprise/
Also:
If your application is really intended for a wider audience, and your could in-fact sell/distribute it a such - you could "skin" the app dynamically. For example, on first-time launch, when you "register" with some "service" - based upon your email address it could download the appropriate skinning graphics.
I can say I know of several companies built on this strategy. The code doesn't change one iota from app to app, only images and names change and they continue to bring in revenue.
EDIT: Note this is against apple policy and if they find out they have been known to ban accounts. They consider it spamming and prefer that you sell one app that provides in app purchases. Directly from their feedback on a particular group of app submissions:
Thank you for submitting your
Photography apps to the App Store.
We've completed the review of your
apps, however, we are unable to post
them to the App Store because they
provide the same feature set and
simply vary the content. Apps that
replicate functionality with different
content create clutter in the App
Store, hindering users' ability to
find apps, and do not comply with the
App Store Review Guidelines
https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html:
2.20 Developers 'spamming' the App Store with many versions of
similar apps will be removed from the
iOS Developer Program
You can now use Apple's Volume Purchase Program to release differently branded versions of the same app to different customers. The app can be free or paid. Each customer must have a DUNS number (Dun & Bradstreet). See the FAQ for details.
I have some questions that I think some one here can help me ...
I have published 5 apps in AppStore that brings news to the users, for different countries. One app per country, because no one want's to read the news of other countrys. Now, I have submitted 3 more apps to publish and Apple reject it, because they say that I need to use "In App Purchase" because the apps are similar ...
I have seen many similar apps published by the same user .. so, my question is, how can I publish many similar apps without "In App Purchase"?
I have used the same "bundle Id" for all of my apps .. Is it wrong? I need the create one bundle Id per app to get this work and the ok by Apple?
Thanks you very much and sorry for my limited english!!
Since Apple released the App Store Review Guidelines, one of them is that developers should not "spam" the app store with multiple versions of the same app with minor changes.
What Apple wants from you right now is to merge all your apps into one. Put all the news sources in one app, and let the user decide which to read. You can write code to disable and/or hide other news sources that the user doesn't want to see.
Or, as Apple said, if you want to charge for each individual news source, then use In-App purchase to control access to each news source.
If you are charging, I won't get into the legality of charging people to read news that you don't own - I'm sure you've considered that.
Source: App Store Review Guidelines
2.20 Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program
At least you need to create unique bundle ID's for each application you distribute through the App Store.
It is possible that Apple still determines that the apps are identical even if they use different bundle ID's. In that case you might be able to get them approved by limiting the distribution countries in the store setup.
Maybe you should follow Apple's advice.
I know plenty of people who like to keep informed about news of other countries.
Such as people who have migrated and people who are on holiday?
Something to consider maybe.
Apple doesn't offer promotional codes for in-app purchases. What's the best way to let users try the features or content unlocked by in-app purchases for free, while complying with Apple's Developer Guidelines?
The idea is to allow a special set of users (reviewers, key fans, etc.) to access the content or features offered as in-app purchases without paying.
Examples of apps that worked around this limitation would be much appreciated.
You could submit a version of your application that has all features unlocked by default.
Submitted apps have a publish date that you can set when you submit (and I believe you can change this on the fly as well) you could simply prevent the app from being published in the App store but still be able to give promotional codes for it.
Promo codes apply to a specific app version, so when users redeem promo codes for a version of an app that hasn’t been released yet, they download the prerelease version.
Source
Something like shareware? An app, that has a subset of features enabled until in-app purchase? Apple allows it now.
As example. We've a puzzle game, that has 12 difficulty levels. 4 or 5 of them are available for free and others are unlocked after in-app purchase.
I'm working on this now.
What I'm doing is I generate a random code/guid and store that on my webService's DB. Then give that code to who ever you want. They enter that code and it calls the web service passing the code, and device UDID. The webService returns another code indicating if that promocode was valid. If valid then the app will add that purchase to NSUserDefaults or Core Data (however you keep track of purchases).
If you don't have a server up and running (say the content is already in the app bundle) and you don't want a server would require you making an algorithm to generate keys that your app validates. However this is far less robust. Using a web service allows you to prevent 1 working key from being distributed between all users, as you can tie 1 promo code to 1 device.