I have an app that has been released on the app store with separate versions for iPhone and iPad. Now I wish to convert the app to a Universal version but I have an issue which I'm not sure can be resolved.
Both versions of the app use a different bundle identifier (for example com.mycompany.app.iphone and com.mycompany.app.ipad). I want the new (universal) version to overwrite either of the old versions when downloaded from the app store. To complicate matters further, core data stored for that app needs to be retained.
I'm not sure its possible and perhaps the protocol is to release the universal version under a new bundle identifier and have users start again but if a workaround is available it would be really helpful.
your options:
1: Update both your iPhone and iPad apps with this universal binary (with respective bundleIDs and app names)
2: Create a way to sync data between apps by creating a web service. one of the apps I have used extensively - Gas Cubby, does this for transferring data from its free app to paid app. You could implement it in a similar way
3: Nuke one of the apps, update the other app with the universal binary
Option 1 is the easiest. 2 will take longer. 3 is dirty.
(will update this answer with more options if I come across any)
As far as I know and from what I've read before, you can't change the bundle identifier of an app published in the app store.
Due to the sandboxing, accessing the data of your old app from the new app is also impossible.
There are several ways you could go about solving this issue, depending on which one suits you best. You could create a new universal app, and abandon the old ones hoping that the users change their preferences, or you could be pushing the same update to both applications, essentially, having the identical app under two different names. I'm not sure what are Apple's stances on the second option, but it will be a hassle either way. Good luck!
Related
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.
Please bear with me, this isn't a programming question per se but a question about releasing for the App Store.
I have an App on the store that is a universal binary, with a separate UI for the iPad. I've been creating some new features and working exclusively in the iPhone version. I've been rethinking my iPad UI because I feel like it's kind of poor and could be more well done. I'd like to branch off and create a specialized iPad only version and abandon the iPad code in the current universal binary, and instead just target the individual platforms instead of both.
The reasons are as follows:
I want to be able to do a release with new features without having to commit to working them all in on the iPad version of the universal binary.
I want to distinguish the iPad version from the iPhone version.
First, I want to know if this is even possible. Second, I want to know what kind of fallout is possible from something like this. I remember two years ago when Tweetie 2 was a new bundle and the general public mostly whined about having to pay again. My app is much smaller than Tweetie 2 and I don't have a ton of users. In fact, I don't use any analytics to discover daily use, feature use, or anything.
Have any of you ever done something like this?
Thanks for your time, and please don't flag.
That would really suck for iPad-only users who bought your program.
What you could do is leave the existing app out there as version 1. Don't upgrade it.
Release version 2 in separate iPhone and iPad flavours. No existing customer gets left out. You get to split your releases. If your app is truly good then people will pay again for the upgraded version.
This link shows a video where an app upgrade is "forced" from within the app itself:
http://buzzworks.de/blog/update-ios-beta-apps-from-within-the-app
The App Store is not called in and it's said to work only for AdHoc
apps.
Anyone knows how is this possible?
edit: please give a look to the video before answering. AdHoc apps are signed by the developer and they do not come from the App Store. This sort of forced update is useful when doing beta testing and in enterprise applications.
I've found that it's all explained here:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/featuredarticles/FA_Wireless_Enterprise_App_Distribution/Introduction/Introduction.html
The developer should create an .ipa with the app and a manifest in plist format with the URL to the .ipa and a few other things.
The app can optionally implement its own way to find if an update is available and open
the URL to the manifest.
I didn't it's really possible because the app has to somehow sign itself. The best I can think of right now is that the app is not signed?
You can always force people to go to the app store when a new version is out. Simply make the app connect to a webservice first. Other solutions are not accepted by Apple, or will quite simply not work because of other issues (signing is one of many).
You could also design your app in such a way that forced updates are never a requirement. You can load your user interfaces from the web (Apple has presented some valuable information about that during the previous WWDC), your data can come from the web, and if there is any other correction to do just ensure your app is backwards compatible.
That's how the app store works. And it never requires a 'forced update' ... Well, almost never ;-)
I have an app on the Store for which we’re readying an update.
The other members of our team have the App Store version already loaded up (~purchased) on their respective iPhones -- and those contain User Data which each member needs to be able to keep.
In the meantime, we need to test out a Beta version of the next version of the app.
Presumably, we’d need to have the two versions (ad hoc, and app store) co-existing on each device, at least until everyone’s signed off on the beta and it’s uploaded to the store (at which point, they'd delete the beta version).
[Once it’s on the Store, of course, they can each update their main (i.e., Release) version of the app via the usual App Store 'update' mechanism. In that case, all their user data is still retained intact.]
So assuming that’s the proper workflow ...
How do I issue a Beta to the team, and have it not replace/overwrite the existing App Store version?
I’ve tried customizing parameters in the beta’s “[appname]-Info.plist”, but haven’t found a setting yet that allows the two versions (beta and release) to co-exist on the same device.
Any ideas? And is this is the proper approach to them being able to keep their data?
(And last, how might I do it with & without a script? I assume there's just one parameter that'd need to be changed.)
I hope this all makes sense -- thank you in advance for your help!
So you want to have two versions of the same application on one device? I don't think there's a way to get this effect -- updating an application, which keys on unique CFBundleIdentifier, replaces old version bundle but not data.
For the effect you want, you must have two distinct applications. They need different CFBundleIdentifiers, so they won't overwrite each other. They then cannot share data, so you'll have to arrange for export/import involving an off-device shared space.
If you don't want this hassle, issue the team extra devices and test on those. The team's primary devices remain on the AppStore version. You must still export/import to bring content from the test devices to the primary devices. Any paid content each has on the App Store version should be available for their beta, though, as usual for app upgrades and one-owner multiple-devices scenarios.
I am near the end stages of developing an iPhone application and will be releasing it as both a 'lite' (ad-supported) version and a 'pro' (ad-free, likely with additional functionality at some point) version.
I've followed suggestions here and elsewhere about creating multiple targets, etc. and am able to build these without any problems.
But this does bring to mind a question: What is the best, most user-friendly, accepted way in which to handle transitioning from a lite version of an app to a pro version?
As I see it - and please correct me if any of my assumptions are wrong - there are potentially two ways to do this:
Give each application its own Bundle identifier (ie. com.companyname.fooapplite and com.companyname.fooapppro). This will result in both being treated as being completely separate entities. Data is not automatically migrated should a user move from one to the other and both could very well have both installed on the same iPhone at the same time.
Give each application the same Bundle identifier (ie. com.companyname.fooapp), so that they are treated as essentially the same application. The lite version of the application will be overwritten by the pro version if they download and install it. Data from the lite version is maintained in the pro version.
The latter seems ideal to me - I can't imagine someone wanting to keep a lite version after they've just purchased a pro version - but this brings up a few questions:
Does Apple even allow option #2?
Will using option #2 result in any goofiness I should be aware of, ie. the two versions stepping on eachother in some way.
If it's not allowed, is there a suggested practice in place to migrate data from what are basically two completely different applications? I'm aware of StoreKit, but it isn't supported on free applications.
As it is, this current app doesn't really generate data of huge value and the worst thing that will happen is users will have to re-enter some authentication credentials upon upgrading to pro. But down the road, if I were to develop a similar app that stores valuable data locally, I'd like to know how to best transition users and their data in a seamless manner.
Thanks,
Jeff
One more option is to exchange data from the Lite to the Full version via a URL. Register a myFullApp URL with the full version and have the Lite app present an upgrade option that calls that URL with the various data you want to exchanged encoded in it.
That does require the user fire up your Lite version and hit a button, but it's fairly simple too.
I have not tried this myself, but a third option to exchange small amounts of data is to use the Keychain API. Apps that share an identifier stub -- com.companyname.foo as a parent to com.companyname.foo.fooapp and com.companyname.foo.fooapplite -- can supposedly write to the keychain from one app and read from the other. Haven't seen this done, but a lot of people claim it's possible. And in any case, the keychain is probably a good place to be storing things like authentication credentials.
Option four would be to have the lite app store some user data on a server you operate, and have the full app retrieve it from there, but there are all kinds of problems with that approach.