I've looked for an answer in the Apple Docs, and here and other sites, and cannot find anything. So I'm hoping to find someone who knows or has experience with it.
My app is using GameKit to store some Achievements (no scores or leaderboard). When I delete the app from the simulator, it is NOT prompting me if I want to delete the GameCenter data as well, like production apps usually do. Is this normal? Do I need to do anything specific to create this prompt? Or will it simply appear in the production version and is not available for some reason in the Sandbox?
Related
A few days ago my iPhone game has been approved for sale. When searching its name in the search bar of the App Store, it showed my App. Now when I try to search my game, it doesn't show any result. The direct link still works, however.
Any suggestion?
Check which country's App Store you are viewing currently. Probably it's not the same as the country your app is live now.
The issue fixed by itself with time. I don't know why, but my application is appeared back in the search results of the App Store.
I suspect it was because of an internal trouble that Apple was having with the App Store servers at that time, maybe it erroneously removed my app record from the search database, and now they managed to restore it.
After making an update to an iPad app I released some time ago, I've been getting reports that people are unable to actually update the app without deleting and re-installing. However, as far as I know, nothing in the update should be causing this. (All the update deals with is letting people email PDF documents, nothing major.) When people attempt to update, they're asked for their iTunes password, but after entering it, it merely goes back to the update screen and nothing happens. Additionally, it would seem that this only happens with my app, the people in question aren't having any issues with the other various apps on the App Store. Does anyone know what might be causing this and how I could fix it?
Thanks in advance!
(Also, if it matters, the app is a custom B2B app, the general public can't purchase it.)
I'm removing the text of my answer because it's so inaccurate it's embarrassing. I mistook "B2B" for "Enterprise" and answered based off of that. To make up for it, I'll look into the problem a bit more and if I find anything I will edit this answer accordingly.
Edit:
Okay, I can see why you put a bounty for this question on SO; there's not really any data on a problem like this anywhere. Frankly, there's not much available information on B2B in general. I'll post what I found anyway, in case it can be of any help to you.
I found the details reason behind Maggie's question, there. Per Editing and Updating App Information:
Updates keep the same Apple ID and bundle ID, which means they are
associated with your first version and free to your customers
Also, apparently, "You can't change the CFBundleIdentifier of a released app if you want to release updates for it, the App Store will automatically reject it when you upload." which is something I can vouch for, having experienced this with a normal app. I do know that for a B2B app you do have to submit it to Apple for review, but I can't tell from the documentation I found if you need to actually submit it to the App Store, so it may not go through the various checks that normal apps go through, so this could be your problem.
Aside from that, according to the VPP guide, if your customers are installing the apps on the devices with Apple Configurator (broken right now, per app store reviews) the updates also have to be done with the Configurator. You haven't said that Configurator was involved, but I did find this tidbit.
• Use Apple Configurator to install apps on new or supervised devices.
Apple Configurator on a Mac makes it easy to mass configure and deploy
devices that are centrally controlled. Redemption code spreadsheets
acquired through the Volume Purchase Program can be imported by Apple
Configurator, tracking the number of apps installed on each device. To
update deployed apps using Apple Configurator, you must reconnect to
the same Mac from which the apps were installed. Learn more at
itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-configurator
Anyway, good luck. Wish I could be more help.
What you are describing (assuming that it is accurate) would certainly be a bug on Apple's side. If users are trying to update the app and the update is not being processed, then in one way or another that is a bug that Apple needs to address. Nothing that you do as a developer should be able to cause that situation to happen. I would suggest contacting Apple and possibly filing a bug report.
It seems that apple wants you to develop the Iphone apps in the latest build. Sometimes this cause issues between realeases (diferent versions of Itunes, OSX, IOS, etc) when you try to update your apps.
Try to publish the app in the latest version of xcode.
That happens a lot in iphone development testing.
Hope this help.
When updating an app, iOS looks for the bundleId and if there is another app with the same bundleId, it updates the app with the highest version number. Maybe the version number is not set correctly or maybe people have issues because an other app (from the AppStore or an other B2B app) have the same bundleID but a higher version number.
I'm by far not an iPhone expert, but it seems something related might have been fixed in iOS 6.0.1.
Fixes a bug that prevents iPhone 5 from installing software updates
wirelessly over the air
I'm getting ready to submit an App that relies on the user being at specific locations to watch a video. (Kind of a mashup of geocaching and youtube.) Needless to say none of these videos are anyway near Apples headquarters. So how will the App store review people be able to properly review the App? Do I have to provide test data in their vicinity or can I instruct them to fake their geolocation to a location that works?
I guess the best way is to just submit it once, wait ~7 days and see what they have to say,
but since they have special toolchains to test apps, it shouldn't be a problem.
Just make sure to mention it in the review notes.
I've submitted an update to an app once that requires an user and password to login, and gave them a test user. When I checked the server logs, they never logged in once - but the app was still approved.
The iOS Simulator can 'fake' its location :) Though I doubt what they DO review in their process, because once they accepted one of my Apps' update which crashed upon launch...
Recently had to deal with this myself... submitted a location specific app without any extra review notes, and the app got rejected. In the rejection notice I was given the instruction to create a video of the app in action and then provide a link in the review notes.
So I used another iPhone to take the video, put some basic explanation text in the video using iMovie, uploaded to YouTube, put the link in the reviewers notes, re-submitted the app and then 5 or so days later it was approved.
As I understand, they review team does NOT test the usability nor stability of your app during app reviewing. All you need to do, is to provide an testing account, and some sample data, screenshots to them helping understand how your app works. If the app does not show any data because of a reasonable circumstance, it's not the problem of your app quality nor user usage, but data coverage. So you won't have problem with it.
I found this information on a blog which talks about invalid product ids.
http://troybrant.net/blog/2010/01/invalid-product-ids/
I tried everything suggested in the
Apple forums and here, and still
couldn’t get it to work. Found the
solution – your app needs to be
transferred by Xcode for the sandbox
to be enabled.
Obvious, right? Well, if you are
working with an update to an existing
account, the device will still treat
it as an App Store-installed app.
Delete it, then transfer it again. It should work now :)
i am also getting invalid product ids.i am not able to get clear in the above said point...
i am not able to understand what i need to do when transferring the application into device...
Kindly guide me out and thanks for your help
That point just means that you need to run the app from Xcode in order for the sandbox to be available. (Build and Run)
Invalid product ids are a major pain to debug. If you're sure you've gotten everything on that checklist, then you just need to wait. Then only other problem that I've seen is that you might need to remove the app from the device and redeploy in order to get good products back from the store.
I had trouble getting the app store to recognize my sandbox test account. I had to log out wit iTunes, sync, then log in again with iTunes. Just using the device itself to log in/out didn't help.
This question already has answers here:
Can I force an iPhone user to upgrade an application?
(16 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I am about to upload my Iphone application to the apple store, however I intend to release more versions in the near future. Is there anyway to make my application auto update once I upload a new version to the apple store?. That is as I am about to upload version 1.0, once i upload version 1.x, can the user be notified of this or can the application be auto-updated?. Can anyone point me in the right direction?. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
-Oscar
No, this functionality is not available on the iPhone. The AppStore provides updates through the store only, and Cydia provides updates through Cydia only.
The direction i've seen many applications take is at start, check an XML file that you host for information on newer versions, and typically display a message to the user (preferably in a news ticker or non-obstructive manor) about a new version being released, and why they should upgrade.
You can't auto-update, however as far as I'm aware nothing prevents you from notifying the user that a new version is available, within your app. For example you could contact a web server to find out what the latest version is, and compare that to a build number in your app bundle, then display an appropriate alert/notification to the user. Or, you could get fancy and use the 3.0 push notifications for this.
In theory the appstore app/itunes will do this anyway, but it's clear that a lot of users don't see that.
Another thing you can do using the method I outlined (that the app store won't do) is tell the users that a new version is available, what it does, and that it's waiting for apple.
Even simpler is just to embed an 'announcements' channel in your app somewhere. That lets you talk to your users without waiting for apple - you can tell them there is a new version on the way, etc. I do this with an app I'm beta testing - a button on the main screen shows announcements, which I pull from my server.
Maybe if enough app developers did this, apple would start turning the approvals around quicker. Or change the legalese to prevent it [assuming it doesn't already] :-)
This is functionality provided by the app store. When you submit new versions, after apple has approved them, they will become available through the app store as updates to users that already have the app installed.
User will see new available updates to apps he owns in iTunes. User can then choose to get the update.
I'm not sure about updates via iPhone but if you pay for data downloads you would prefer to download apps/updates over iTunes on your Mac and then sync to iPhone. It's cheaper that way.
My guess is automatic version updating is intentionally left out. Think about it: what kind of strain will they have on their server if everyone on the planet with an iPhone downloaded An update to Fruit Ninja at the same time? I think their passive notification to the users via the red circle and white number allows them to spread out/stagger the update downloads and reduce server load.