When releasing multiple versions of an iphone-app, there are problems:
you are running very old apps (still need to support them through server-api)
you have to live with bugs of a certain app, once released blocker-bugs are not fixable
Is there a way to mark an iphone-app as unsupported or enforce an online-update, i.e. when it starts up it will show an upgrade button?
So far I always read that you cannot enforce an upgrade of an iphone-app. Is this correct, can somebody give me official reference/link for that? I just cannot believe that once you released an iphone-app this is for eternity? An "unsupported" marker would be a very helpful app-store feature...
You can not enforce app upgrade, but you can add a mecanism in your app to display a message to say that the version is not compatible with server-api. Of course it should be provide on the first app version...
Related
My employer has a free iOS app in iTunesConnect that was originally released a couple of years ago and has received various updates over time. They now wish to stop supporting older versions of the application (1.x) and disable these older versions of the app.
My questions are:
Can we stop users from re-installing old versions of the app? If yes, how?
How do we disable/remove old versions of the app in iTunesConnect?
What is Apple's policy regarding disabling/removing old versions of applications?
I'm not an iOS developer and am unfamiliar with the whole Apple application development process. I have searched the web as well as the Apple developer centre and I've read through the Apple Developer Program Terms and Conditions but I haven't been able to find answers to any of my questions.
I have managed to find information about removing an application from sale but this removes the entire application, rather than just specific versions. (Deleting a free app from iTunesConnect)
David Smith's article (http://david-smith.org/blog/2012/06/20/hacking-paid-upgrades/) on Paid Upgrades mentions the ability to provide fixes for previous versions if they're not deleted from iTunesConnect. When I log into iTunesConnect, I only see the current version of the app listed so I'm assuming prior versions have been deleted already. I would, however, like to confirm that users can no longer download old versions of the app.
This article mentions users being able to download old versions of apps from iCloud (http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/09/icloud-supports-re-downloading-some-discontinued-apps/) - can we prevent this? One option would be to mark the the version as having a "legal issue" but what ramifications does this have? and if I can't see the app in iTunesConnect then how do I do it?
I found a post asking about how to force a user to upgrade the application every time a new version is released but this doesn't answer my questions either. We want the users to upgrade but we're not wanting to force it programmatically. (Can I force an iPhone user to upgrade an application?)
I've also found lots of posts asking how to revert to previous versions of an app in the app store but again, this is not what we're wanting to do. We're wanting to disable older versions of the app but leave the most recent versions alone.
Before the flame wars begin:
Users that are unable to update to the latest version of the app for whatever reason are able to use a mobile website in place of the app. The website has the exact same functionality.
Can answers please be kept on-topic rather than getting into great debates over whether one should/shouldn't maintain legacy versions.
Thanks in advance :)
Users can typically only ever download the latest version of an application. There are a few ways I think they can get around that but in general only the latest version is available to users via the normal means.
If, however, you absolutely must prevent the old versions from being released you can do so when submitting a new update. Right after you say "Ready for Upload" you will be asked a question about if this update was for a 'legal reason' if you click YES then you will be given the opportunity to disable old versions of the app from download.
As to Apple's policy on this...I have no idea. But I can't think of any policy that would require you to support older versions moving forward.
Can I force a user to upgrade my app? Does Apple recommend it?
Yes, you can. Just check the version number when the application starts and if needed, bail out with an error screen. I don’t think Apple explicitly prohibits this. (And I doubt they would find out during the review.) Of course it’s annoying from the user’s viewpoint, I would only write something like that if there was no other option.
Yes you can force an upgrade to the user. You can call a webservice when your app start and check on your server if an update is available (you have to add an update when an update available on app store). If an update is available then you can present a view that will have the update button. When pressed this button will redirect the user to the installed app store app and open the upgraded app in it. (you should return this url in your webservice). Let me know in comments if you need more explanations.
And I don't know apple recommend this way. But I have seen this in one or two apps.
Extremely bad approach. My perfectly fine working app forces upgrade, which can not be supported due to obsolete iOS. I am not only forced, but moving away from the coupon app in determination to never use it web-based either.
Security issue, if that is the reason for upgrade, should be patched for existing iOS.
There is a situation that I am faced with which seems like it has no solution. Here it is:
I have an app on App Store. I didn't write any piece of code for this app keeping the upgrade scenario in mind. For all I could imagine, I never that I would be giving out more versions apart from the one I already have on app store. Now, the situation is that I am required to give an upgrade of my app and with in the new code, I am to identify if it is a new install of the latest version or if it is an upgrade from the older version. I don't know how to approach this as I have not coded my first version appropriately for upgrades? Anybody willing to enlighten me.
See previous thread here iPhone: How do I detect when an app is launched for the first time? I use this in just your scenario and it's fine to introduce it with the update - it copes with the previous version doing none of this.
I have, after many months of work, finally got my app updated for iOS4.
The first release was complied for iOS3.2 and has been in the AppStore for a while, I was very impressed to see it continued to work and be downloadable for iOS4 users all this time, even though my version failed to compile for iOS4.
However, now I've got the new version (complied for iOS4.2) waiting for review - I'm unsure what will happen to the existing app! If it is used overwritten, what will people with old versions of iOS see? Am I closing the door to anyone without iOS4.2+?
Many thanks
Ben.
p.s. apologies if this has been covered - I did look and failed to find :-)
When you specify the minimum OS required in the bundle, that filters what users will be notified of the upgrade. So users of your app that have yet to upgrade the underlying OS will not get pushed the update.
You can actually specify the target OS Level to an earlier version. The app will be allowed to install on that and any newer version. Generally, Apple is very good about forward-compatibility.
As Peter said, you probably don't want to compile it to only run on 4.2. If you added features that use newer versions of iOS, you can actually do a check prior to calling the method (I've done this with gesture recognizers) to ensure that the running OS version is capable. If you don't validate the OS, the app will simply crash on users with too-old operating systems, which could cause Apple to reject it.
Also, 4.3 is almost out, so you might as well wait a week :)
If your app only supports 4.2+, then only users with a device with 4.2+ iOS will be able to install and use your app. The version currently on the store will be overwritten. In short, yes you are "closing the door" to anyone with a lower version iOS.
I have an app on appstore.
I uploaded a new version and it was published. But, just after that I realized an important bug in my app. Since the approvement process takes a long time, I want to downgrade to the previous version until the fixed version is approved by Apple.
Are there any way for that?
Thanks
The only way to downgrade is to resubmit the previous version with a new version number, or a new fixed version, and wait until it is approved. If you put a note in the Demo Account section saying this is a rollback or a critical bug fix, there are reports that Apple may perhaps expedite the review. If the bug is bad enough to create very unhappy customers, you can warn customers not to download it in your update notes, and/or you can set the availability date of the current broken version into the future, until your fix is accepted.
Unfortunately not, Apple doesn't provide a means of rolling back to previous versions. If you have the source code, you could always just increment the version number and upload the old version again.
like the other answers have said - unfortunately, Apple does not provide a way to rollback once you've released the app.
The way many major apps deal with this is by instrumenting their app ahead of time with feature flags (https://martinfowler.com/articles/feature-toggles.html): ways to enable/disable features and codepaths from the server.
Granted that implementing feature flags requires foresight and planning (it's unlikely you'll capture every codepath). Fwiw, I started my current company (https://screenplay.dev) out of this frustration; you can read much more on this approach here: itunesconnect App - Revert to previous version :)