We have live applications on the app store. They're released, active and with a lot of users.
Now, there's talk about renaming one of our apps.
I've never done that personally. Do any of you know if it's possible to update it, and what's the risk?
If the status of your app is Prepare for Submission, you can change your app name. In the past I renamed my apps on the App Store several times, but I'm NOT required a new AppId.
In the past I had to rename an App on the App Store. At that time it was all bad news. Since the new name required a new AppId all of my existing customers could not receive updates to the program. And, since it wasn't a subscription model, I had no way to contact them and so was only able to lament this in the product description. I can only hope that it's better now.
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I have an iphone app. I want to upload this app 2 times in itune with different name.
is it possible?
You can, but you should also change Bundle ID and maybe you'll have to desribe the reason of it for Apple guys.
Quote from App Store Review Guidelines
2.11 Apps that duplicate Apps already in the App Store may be rejected,
particularly if there are many of them, such as fart, burp,
flashlight, and Kama Sutra Apps
Pay attention to the phrase "may be rejected". As someone experienced told me, this rule exists to prevent cluttering App Store with apps where, for example, only a color of the background changes. If you provide different content, than it's different user experience and as a result - different app.
You can upload an application more than 2 times in itunes. Your applications must have own unique Bundle Identifier to Upload or you already can't see your app in Application Loader.
But there is a point, if you will not describe why you upload the same application with different name in itunes (with different Bundle Identifier), Apple will going to reject your application with description "App Duplication"..
There's no way to be sure if it'll be rejected. But I highly doubt that it'll get caught with a different name. We have done it before, to transfer an app to a different account. (Before app transfer was introduced.)
Just remember to change the your bundle identifier - and the provisioning file of course. :-)
My company had outsourced an iOS app to another company, and they published the app on the App Store using their Apple ID. The app have been available for download for a few months and has a number of users. Now my company developed a slightly newer version of the app and would like to distribute the app using our own Apple ID. What's the correct way to do it? The major concerns we have are:
Should we submit the newer version using our ID before or after we take the old app down from the App Store. Would it happen that the newer app get rejected because Apple feel the two apps are too similar? (Actually they are quite similar, for that the update is slim.)
Is there a graceful way to notify the currently online app's users that they should switch to the newer app? And How to coordinate it, since the newer app may take a certain amount of time to get approved.
Thanks.
There are some different scenarios here, I am going to try to address some of them to see which one helps you the most:
1-)You have a current application that contains no use of push notification and no use of in app purchase. This is the easiest one. Basically, It does not matter what version the user has had before. You can remove the old one from the previous developer account and add it to the new developer account. By completely removing the previous application (not just from the app store listing, but from the developer account), you can reuse the bundle ID. When the user reinstall the app, the user will be able to replace the old application with the new application (note that the new application will not appear on the user's update list).
2-)You have push notification. Here, you will have to keep the old application if you wish to maintain the push notification certificates, so, the new application will have to use a new bundle ID, which means that the app will appear on the user as a new application, and the user will be able to have both app simultaneously.
3-)You have in app purchase and subscriptions. You will need to remove the old in app purchase entries from the old developer account, and add it to the new account (if you wish to reuse the product id, if not, you will have to create it either way).
I am not sure what kind of measure you need to take if you are using iCloud and/or other services. Best course of action is to contact Apple developer support. They will give you some guidance on what to do with your specific case. Also, when submitting, make sure to point to the reviewer that you are trying to move the application from one company to another. I think they can access review notes from the review to the previous submission(instead of reviewing it as a new app), and speed up the process.
Edit: You can not transfer apps between companies using iTunes connect. More information here: link
The app has a different bundle identifier and the old app is not enable for push notifications. We want to update the old app with one screen and a button that sends the users to the app store to download the new app. Will Apple even approve that? Any ideas on a better way to do it?
If it has a different bundle id it's probably possible. I've seen many apps doing this. For example free apps! They seduce the users with new features to buy the full app. So it wont be a problem to connect both apps via link to itunes. If you use Push N be sure to set up all correctly. My idea is to set the old one to a free app and connect them. And why dont you make the budles the same? Like a normal update?
We had to do something similar when an App we developed needed to change from our account to our customer's account (to comply with their internal brand standards). We updated the old app to say "We've Moved." and had a link to the itms: for the new version. We did let the user dismiss the notice and keep using the old version, though.
I'm sure they'll approve it if you let the user put off upgrading. Maybe not if you force them to upgrade as you suggested in your question.
I am developing several apps for AppStore, with different bundle IDs, but similar logic. Now I am working on a new concept, which covers all the logic from those apps into one common project. Hence, I would like to prepare a new app, that is intended to replace all the old apps. How can I ensure that?
To be clear, I want all the users to install the new app, run it, so that it can transfer data and functionality from old apps installed on user's device. How can I do that, so that all data and functionality will be kept depending on which old apps had each user installed, and Apple will be OK with such a change and behavior?
This is not possible, you will have to replace all the old apps with new once. You can't update the app bundle ID in a new version.
due to a Licence Conflict with the Name of one of my Applications I had to remove it from the App Store.
If I rerelease it under a different name, is there a way I could reduce the price for people who previously bought the old App?
I'm going to add a lot of new features , still it is going to be the same program.
Did any one experience somthing like this before?
Hi unfortunately this is not possible if you are creating a new app to migrate users from an existing app free of charge.
If the old app is still on iTunes, you can just change the name there and in your plist file and continue to use the same bundle identifier, Your old users will receive the new application as a free update, however it sounds like your application has been removed
One option would be to make the app available for free for a period and before any marketing campaign took place, then inform the users of the old application that the new application is available free of charge if they update now, once it is felt you have enough of your old users on the application you could raise the pricing tier of the new application