Imagine that we have bought other application, then transfer it to our accounts in application stores. Seems like it's possible for all 3 major smartphone platforms.
Imagine then that we bought app for great community, not for app features. Could we publish our own app as an update for bought app?
P.S.: we don't consider possible negative reaction from community, only tech and legal possibility. Also we don't consider that at least in Apple App Store publishing absolutely the same app with different bundle id counts like spamming.
For Google Play techincally it is possible to transfer a app from one account to another and yes you can publish other app as the update for the existing one as long as your app has the same package name as the existing one.
http://phandroid.com/2012/06/21/getting-acquired-how-to-transfer-ownership-of-your-android-app-or-game/
Related
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
Is it possible to have the same identical app on App Store, but under two different developer accounts, and slightly different names?
I need to move an app from one dev account to another, but I would like it uploaded on the new account before removing it from the old one.
Anyone have experience with this?
The two apps will have to have unique and different iTunes Connect names and different Bundle IDs. The only sure way to determine whether or not this is possible is to submit the new app, and see if Apple approves it.
I've seen the same app "Smart Alarm Clock" by Arawella corp being sold both as a free version and as a paid version. They essentially have the same app twice in the app store, just with different icons. If a company that big can get away with that, you can probably too (paid and free version)
I have five iphone apps which have similar interface/functionality but for the use of five different business persons.They are doing same type of business. So the similarity in app. The app will be free to use by public.
Apple says
1. Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected
2. Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program.
3. Apps that look similar to apps bundled on the iPhone, including the App Store, iTunes Store, and iBookstore, will be rejected.
Is these guidelines applicable for apps under enterprise app deployment ? Is it possible publish apps under Ad-hoc mode and give link of the app through another website?
if your app is same interface functionality. just add a db to it for different people. No need to publish it more than once. and issue regarding duplication on apstore, they already have billions of apps so no care for what purpose your app is. just differentiate the database as your goal is manage users separately.
My company bosses want to create a native version of a currently web-based app that will be available to their existing customers (currently a few thousand).
They say it is imperative that the application be available for downloading from the app store.
However the app would only be of any use to customer who already have an account (and would be useless to anybody else who downloaded the app).
Is this actually possible to submit such a thing to the app store?
There are dozens of Apps in the App Store that where they are only usable if you are an existing customer. Look at all the banking related ones for example.
AFAIK, you cannot restrict the intended users when distributing through the AppStore.
What you can do is apply for an iOS Developer Enterprise Program, though you'd be installing the app directly to the devices (requires physical presence of the devices).
You could also use a service like TestFlight, though their terms probably just allow deployment for testing purposes.
What I'd go for is getting the app to the AppStore anyway, as long as your app doesn't include confidential content. You could advise in the description not to install the app unless they're your company's clients.
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.