12 months ago I developed an iPhone app which was rejected by the app store. I have recently come up with a solution to get round the reason why the app was rejected and was planning on resubmitting. I have just discovered that an app was released less than a month ago with the name I was going to use for my app. Is there any way that I can object to this? Not only did I submit <my iphone app name> but I also own the domains www.<my iphone app name>.com and www.<my iphone app name>.co.uk.
There are a couple of similar questions on here which suggest trademarking your app name to prevent this from happening and also effectively reserving an app name within the app store. I specifically want to know if there is a way of objecting to someone elses name.
EDIT: I am NOT looking for opinions as to whether I will be able to stop the name of my app being used by someone else. I want to know if there is a way of contacting apple about this
What branding do you have around your name? Since you haven't released, one could argue that you chose the name after seeing the success of the other application. If you don't have demonstrable pre-existing art then you don't have much to stand on.
To save time, money and heartache, I would simply change your name. If you already have a lot invested in the name (marketing, ads, reputation) then the cost of changing your name may outweigh the cost of fighting.
The other argument is it took you 12 months to resubmit. That will show a lack of interest on your part, and a lack of enthusiasm. Should apple be required to prevent apps with the same name of a previously reject app from being approved for ever on the off chance they re-submit?
For some insight into Apple's thinking on this:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/steve-jobs-to-developer-name-change-not-that-big-of-a-deal/
Short version: choose a different name for your app and move on.
If they were on the store before you and if you haven't trademarked the name, then it goes to them. Doesn't matter if you "came up with the name first" or you have the domain names for it, they got to the store first. Just change the app's name, that's all you can do, unless you own the trademarks (and have owned them before their app came out), then you can go after them.
There doesn't appear to be any way of contacting apple about this.
Related
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. :-)
I was wondering if anyone has any experience with uploading applications.
At the moment we have an application without any leaks, and how hard we even try to create a crash, in both the simulator and the actual device it just wont let us crash it.
Now we're curious if there are any other developers out there that has been in the same situation and sent their applications to the app store and what the actual outcome was. As we're very cautious and dont want to waste our company's resources we'd like to get as much feedback as possible and cover everything before submitting to the app store.
Please feel free to share.
Thanks in advance!
Ensure you don't use any undocumented API's immediate fail.
Follow the Apple criteria and make sure your app fits their restrictions....
Check my post App Store Approval which contains a link to the criteria....
Good work having a thoroughly tested app and I admire your desire to ensure your submission is pain-free. Good luck!
If it does want you want, and you are happy with the amount of testing you've put in it..and it follows Apple's app store guidelines, I'd say its ready for the app store. Quite a large number of apps have huge glaring bugs, so if yours never crashes (doubt this), you are one of the very few.
Also, the process only takes about a week, so I wouldn't say its the end of the world if it somehow gets rejected or you find a bug later.
You can create an ad hoc build and send the application to some iPhone users and ask them for feedback on application. And if app crashes just get the application logs from itunes.
Apart from running a private beta or adding a crash reporter, there isn't much more to do than checking the App Store Review Guidelines and send your first version.
One issue I ran into is that the plural of a word counts as a whole different keyword. Example, looking up snippet won't return applications tagged snippets so be sure to include both of them.
We have an app on the app store that we need to remove. As such we have a new version to upload as a completely new app with a new app SKU and Id but we want to offer a free upgrade for those who have purchased the original version.
Is there a way to do this?
But if you're willing to give new App for free for everybody who's got an old one why do you create a new application and not just update old one? You can change anything you want about app except SKU# as I understand. Do you have anything tied to old SKU# or you have other reasons to create a new app?
I agree with the other posters. Apple does not have a mechanism to do this.
What you can do:
-make a black and white or very washed out icon for the old app
- change the app description to say that this is an old version / no longer supported / deprecated and to search for the new version.
- Make sure the new app title show something like NEW, 2.0 or some signifier to draw attention
I have not heard or seen anything about it. Only thing that comes to my mind is to give a promotion code. This of course opens up some other questions:
How to communicate that to your customers?
How to secure that it is not explored by users who have not bought the first app?
Don't have any good answers to that (time limited offer?) but maybe it could lead you to some new ideas.
Good luck!
Unfortunately there's no real way to do this. Apple intentionally keeps information about the users of your old app private.
Well, there's one way I can think of, but it requires some forethought (and I'm not certain it would be ok by Apple) and it would cost you a bit: When your old app runs it contacts a server of yours with the device's UDID, which you save on the server. Then you show an alert in the old app that tells existing users to contact you via email with their UDID (you could make it easy on the user by putting together the email in-app with the UDID in the subject or body). You then send a gift of the new app (via iTunes) to every user that emailed you that way.
You'd take a 30% hit (Apple's cut) but the rest of the gift price would end up back in your bank account. People who pirated the app would get the offer, too, and there's no way you could tell a pirating user from a valid user. But it would more-or-less work.
I am going to ask users on public forums to take part in my app beta testing using ad-hoc method. So if user interested in testing/reviewing he sends me UUID and I send him app binary.
The main question: is it safe to give anyone app binary file? I heard some terrible stories on Apple iphone developer forums that some guy found his app published someone else using another company name and different icon. So the app was absolutely the same except company name and graphics. He told that someone else got his app binary, cracked it and post it on appstore for profit.
So is it possible to steal my app and publish it on appstore if I give my app binary using ad-hoc?
thx
Yes, as it is possible for the same to occur for apps that are in the app store.
There are tools that can unpack the signed binaries which can then be repacked.
In the same light, someone could crack Visual Studio to show a different company name and then release it as their own.
In both cases, there are serious legal ramifications, and in both cases it is actually very rare to occur.
In the case of iPhone apps, it is very unlikely someone would want to bother stealing your app. If you really think there is a risk, I wouldn't recommend sending ad-hoc copies to random people you don't know.
While it is technically possible, (IANAL) I believe such an act is a violation of the DMCA, giving you legal ground to go after them, any and all profits they make off of what they stole, etc.
If you feel that threatened, you can add an "expiration system" to your app. Check if the date is later that, say November 2009 and kill it. I don't think someone will go into the trouble of removing your code signing, signing it with his own identity after he has cracked the expiration failsafe. You app should be pretty awesome.
I've never heard of code that can't be decompiled/disassembled. I guess this applies to iPhone as well. So yes.
Yes, technically they can take the binary and resign it using their keys. They could do that either to install it on their device, or submit it to the store.
They won't have the source, so making any sort of fixes or changes (including to deal with a submission rejection) would be remarkably difficult, and it should not be to hard to prove a copyright violation and get it taken down (though you might need to pay some lawyers).
At the end of the day I wouldn't worry about it... this sort of thing just doesn't happen in practice.
Has anyone had apple send back the app with a name change requirement? We submitted our app in Nov. and have been going back and forth with them, we corrected the items they asked us to fix which were both interface and memory driven, and they said nothing about the name. They have been testing our API a TON so we know they are doing something on it, but today we saw a app with our same name come out. The developer had it released from Apple back in Dec. and just didn't turn it on till now. Why would Apple not tell us to change that by now, has anyone else had issues with their names, and how do we submit a new name mid process. Our apps are totally different, so that isn't the problem.
When it comes to copyright infringement apple has immediately put us in touch with creators of other apps that use our name. They don't want to get involved in a legal battles, but they do facilitate the connection between all parties. You may consider changing your name to avoid any further delays, as apple can simply wait on an app that they think could become a copyright issue.