How do I make a different icon name for the home screen and the App Store in iPhone?
Apple requires that all of the icons, including the large 512x512 pixel icon for iTunes, be effectively identical. In my experience the large one can be more detailed (graphic textures, etc.), as long as anyone who saw both icons would be able to clearly tell they were for the same app.
The same rule is true for the name of the app in iTunes and the name that shows below the icon on the device: an average user should be able to easily tell that the names match in some way. I've had success with the name on the device being a shortened version of the full name, dropping things like articles ("the," "a," "an") and short prepositions ("for," "by," "on," etc.). I've also had to shorten the app name to its initials ("Fighting Chicks Unlimited" became "FCU"), and it passed without problem.
I have a couple of developer friends who have had their app rejected for the icons looking too dissimilar and for the name in the App Store and the one on the device being too different, so I know Apple definitely has a line you don't want to cross.
I advise that unless there's a very compelling reason for the icons or names to be drastically different, don't bother trying; rejection and resubmission can take weeks.
I guess then that the answer your are looking for is that the icon shown in the app store is uploaded at the time you submit the app in iTunes Connect. It can then obviously be a different file but we recommend you to pass on a picture very close to what th app icon is otherwise your app could be rejected.
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I am making an app for some people and they want to instantly update the app whenever they want after first submission. The changes will be like color, fonts, background color, removing a tab from tabbar...
What I was thinking was, creating a plist with entries like color, font and etc for specific views. And everytime an app starts up, it connects to a server and download the plist (if it's updated) and then load it's views according to the plist.
So for example, say the user wants to change the font from Helvetica to Arial. In plist I would have a dictionary with key named "Font" and object is the font name...So I simply update the plist with the font name "Arial" now and next time the app starts up, the font will change.
I hope I made it clear what I am trying to do. Now my question is, is this kind of thing allowed in app store? In reality, I am trying to circumvent the update system of App Store, but just wondering if it's allowed or if someone had experience doing this.
Thanks.
Your app is allowed to do these kinds of things, but be careful that your clients don't get the wrong set of expectations. The review process is not there to stifle creativity and color changes, but to prevent malicious code from running. You're not circumventing anything by using a web server to control the appearance of your app. Consider many apps which take content from the internet. You are merely taking it a step further.
The iTunes App and the App Store app have recently added a "Purchased" view without any user having to download anything new. You should be fine doing the same.
Yes, downloading content is ok. Downloading code however is not. So if the changes are due to different content you should be fine.
While nobody really knows until Apple says yea or nay, there are a few assumptions I believe to be safe:
1) If you're updating executable code (complied binary or a scripting language) you will not be accepted, and if you make it in somehow they'll yank the app and kick you off when they find out.
2) If you're updating resources (content, colors, fonts, etc.) you are probably fine, but Apple may decide to reject you anyway. Have a good case to defend yourself with if that happens.
All those changes are ok with Apple and can be performed dynamically in response to an external trigger (eg. api).
You can do whatever you want as long as you don't attempt to download and run additional code. (if you don't know what his means then you're fine). :)
Please anyone clarify me what should be the max-min length of the iPad/iPhone application can be?
Forget calculating pixels. I found that the best method is renaming a folder in iOS to find out how iOS handles icon names. Please be aware that there can even be differences between devices! So an iPad icon name can be longer than an iPod icon name.
About 12 letters but it depends on the width of each individual letter (w takes more room than i). And here I am talking about the display name of the app (shown under the icon on the iPad).
The length that it's technically allowed to be is a lot longer than you should make it. The reason being iOS will abbreviate the name on the home screen if it won't fit in the space available, for example "Really Long Title" might display as "Reall...le".
I say 'might' as iOS does not use fixed-width text. The only way to see what works is by trying it and seeing what works.
Finally, the display name is not necessarily the same as the application's name. For example, both the full and free versions of my app use the same display name, though they have different names in the App Store.
There is no limit on the length of application as such. It can be 12,14,16 ...all depends on which characters are present in your app name like W,Z will take much space than i,j . That means your app name appearing in the screen doesnot depend on the length of your name, it simply depends on the width of the screen that each character takes. And usually number will take much space than character. Try out with "iiiiiiiiiiiiii" on your app name and similar length of name with other charcaters.
There are two app name lengths to be concerned with:
the length of the string visible under the app icon on a device's screen
the maximum length iTune Connect allows for app names
The first is addressed above and the advice to experiment with a folder name is the most useful though bear in mind the result is not guaranteed on all devices in all accessibility modes.
For the iTunes Connect case Apple now points you to the App Store Product Page to address this and they say:
The length of your app name is limited to no longer than 50 characters. Notice how your app name will appear on the App Store for each device, including each version of iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. We recommend keeping your app name to around 23 characters or less for optimal presentation on every device. Long names may be truncated, which means users will not see all the characters.
As at Oct 2018:
"The name of your app as it will appear on the App Store. This can't be longer than 30 characters." iTunes Connect
So 30 Characters max now (reduced from 50 historically)
I am doing an app with both static and changing information/graphics. The logo and purpose stay the same, but the graphics and text will change continuously on 1 skin. Does that matter at all? Feel free to just point me to a link that explains this better. I haven't been able to find it in the iphone devel. guide thus far.
You cannot change the name, icon, default images, or any executable or interpreted code (other than Javascript run in a UIWebView) in an iOS app without re-submittal. If you want to change any of the above, you will need to (re)submit the app to Apple.
You cannot change the keywords or screenshots used by the App store, but you can update the text description of an app in the App store without resubmitting the app.
But an app can download and change almost all other content in an app, including text, databases, button labels, colors, images, sounds, UI coordinates, Javascript, etc. There's even an Apple WWDC 2010 video on this data driven app design methodology. You can also add certain badges to an app's icon at run-time. Note that if you aren't filtering certain data/web downloads, your app may get/require an Adult rating.
As long as you are using Public APIs, it does not matter where you pull content from. I would recommend having fall-back graphics in your bundle that can be loaded if the external stuff cannot be found. Other than that, the content is up to you Apple is only trying to make sure the application itself is functional using publicly-available APIs.
i'm looking to query the itunes appstore charts to determine what position a given app holds.
this would need to go as deep as possible with a view to tracking an apps movement from launch to appearing in the top 100 and further.
any ideas?
You can get the top 200 apps, podcasts, etc. from the iTunes RSS feeds:
http://itunes.apple.com/rss
edit: The iTunes RSS feeds now limit you to the top 200. Up until a week ago it would return the top 400
There are plenty of sites out there that do this, but they all operate via some flavor of screen scraping. Apple has no API for this, and I doubt they ever will.
The app store data is in XML format. You can use any number of parsers — click on the search field in the top-right corner of the Stack Overflow page and type "iphone xml parse", for example, for questions about how to parse XML on an iPhone.
Apple will likely reject your application if you use it to scrape the Apple sites directly as it violates their Terms and User Agreement. If you want to do an app like this, I suggest setting up your own service that scrapes Apple, then use the iPhone app to connect to your own servers.
As mentioned below there are plenty of good ways to grab the data. See here and here
If you're interested in checking whether an app is being featured on the App Store homepage a category homepage, in What's new, What's hot or Staff picks, you might wanna have a look at a script I wrote:
http://www.futuretap.com/blog/scraping-app-store-featured-entries/
This will give you the top fifty songs:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/rss/topsongs/limit=50/json
Is there a way to check whether an iphone application name is available to use? Would a search on iTunes and checking to see if there is an existing application already out there be indicative that an iphone application name is available to use or not?
As pointed out here, even if you search the traditional channels, there may still be someone who has claimed that same name but not submitted an application yet. If you wish to truly test this out, it sounds like you can start the process of submitting an application on iTunes Connect, fill in the name of your new application, but don't complete the submission. You should receive an indication as to whether someone else has this same store name. If not, it appears you now have a claim to that name.
In any case, because you can have a different name in the store than is displayed on the iPhone, you might be able to use a slight permutation on the name for your store submission, and your desired name within the iPhone application itself.
However, I would second sgmeyer's suggestion that you do a USPTO trademark search first before using a name. Trademark infringement can get you in trouble later on.
I would recommend searching the app store for the name you wish to use. Also, you might want to check the United States Patent and Trademark Office www.uspto.gov/ to ensure there isn't a trade mark that exists on the name you choose.
You must search from iTunes Connect as if you are adding a new app, just searching on Google doesn't show app names that are alreadcoques iphone 4
Search the app store, and search google.
I'd say if the name you want to use doesn't turn up in a search on iTunes, you should be in the clear to grab that name. I assume all app names are subject to approval by Apple, also, so make sure you pick something that's not called "iBabyShake."