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
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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.
We have built an inhouse version of an iPhone application that is to replace another that is already available from another developer.
I was wondering if you think we can use "app transfer" from the previous developer and in turn replace it with our own app. Previous developer has agreed for the transfer (ofcouse excluding his code). Therefore our question is if we can transfer his app to our development name and then replace the app with our own. Our goal is that the current users of this app will receive ours as an update to what they already have and not as a different app.
In short, transfer and replace so users get our app as an update.
Note:
Please note that as we were unaware of this "transfer" we submitted yesterday our version of the app with a slightly different name. Should we cancel submition (as it is still pending for validation) and follow some route you may suggest in your replies, or stay as it is now?
If you keep the Appidentifier the same between the original version and the new version you will submit, this should work as expected. (But nobody has much know-ho of the new "transfer" option yet)
So, you process would be as follows:
Hand the old developer your TeamID and your Apple ID
The old developer transfers the current App over to your team
Once done (no clue how long that takes), you have the app in your itunes connect
Now you add a new version of the App to itunes connect and mark it as ready to upload
You upload your newly coded app that meets these criteria:
Application Bundle Identifier is the same as with the App you're updating
Your new App is signed with a correct certifcate/provisioning profile (just correct for the appid, doesn't have to be the same one)
The BundelVersion and BundleShortVersionString are at higher than those of the already submitted applications.
So basically, it will work just like a regular update.
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.
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)