Is WatchOS flexible enough to allow a single app to read data from multiple Apple Watches?
The application I am looking at is similar to the one described in this post, but with a twist. I want to use Apple Watches on multiple subjects to monitor vital signs, but I am quite willing to write a dedicated app to access the watches, including polling them or switching the active watch on the iPhone if needed, and assuming that is even possible. Is that possible?
I'd prefer not to have a separate iPhone for each subject.
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Many companies rely on white labeled apps to provide their services in a more personal way to their customers.
With a few adjustments we can set a logo and a splash screen and even pre-configure our app to our customer needs which has a great impact in their end user experience. Without this my users would need to use the app skipping a lot of configuration steps that in a generic app wouldn't be possible to skip.
According to apple: "Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected"
Now what can we do to to work around this?
Today I saw 4 apps being rejected and others are waiting for revision and I can anticipate that they will have the same ending.
Here's the revision result:
"4. 3 Design: Spam"
Guideline 4.3 - Design
We noticed that your app provides the same feature set as many of the
other apps you've submitted to the App Store; it simply varies in
content or language, which is considered a form of spam.
The next submission of this app may require a longer review time.
Next Steps
When creating multiple apps where content is the only varying element,
you should offer a single app to deliver differing content to
customers. Alternatively, you may consider creating a web app, which
looks and behaves similar to a native app when the customer adds it to
their Home screen. Refer to the Configuring Web Applications section
of the Safari Web Content Guide for more information.
Review the Design section of the App Store Review Guidelines.
Ensure your app is compliant with all sections of the App Store Review Guidelines and the Terms & Conditions of the Apple Developer
Program.
Once your app is fully compliant, resubmit your app for review.
Submitting apps designed to mislead or harm customers or evade the
review process may result in the termination of your Apple Developer
Program account. Review the Terms & Conditions of the Apple Developer
Program to learn more about our policies regarding termination.
If you believe your app is compliant with the App Store Review
Guidelines, you may submit an appeal. Alternatively, you may provide
additional details about your app by replying directly to this
message.
For app design information, check out the following videos: "Best
Practices for Great iOS UI Design" and "Designing Intuitive User
Experiences," available on the Apple Developer website.
You may also want to review the iOS Human Interface Guidelines for
more information on how to create a great user experience in your app.
Of course we can develop web apps, but apple can't forget that many features are only available in native or hybrid apps.
What should we do?
References:
https://blog.summitsync.com/did-apple-just-crush-white-label-apps-4aee14d00b78
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
The current answer is out of date. Apple revised their guidelines in which the customer must have their own Apple account now, paying the $99 a year. You can then submit a white labeled app under that account. We have been doing that the past three months with no problem. They wouldnt allow this approach before but now they do.
The Apple developer account can not be an individual account, but a company, educational or government type.
If you have a few apps under the same company account you can submit the apps if they can be proven to belong to the current company. We have three apps submitted under the same company account because the apps shared similar names to the company however I wouldn't do this for different companies.
We where having the same issue. We have talked to Apple, which where very kind and understanding.
Our app is one used mainly bij employees of a company and there for Apple suggested to use B2B app distribution via Volume Purchase Program.
If your app is just white labeled app that business can use for their customers then you are out of luck. Apple will not allow any white label apps in the app store any more.
Your option is to make one app which can switch between the different customers.
If you app is like web store this can be difficult, but as per Apple's example of the fan app of a football club switch per club should be in one app.
4.3 is a complete mess. With its active enforcement, Apple has indeed opened a Pandora's box. The biggest problem is that this policy is applied randomly.
My experience suggests that there are very few App Store reviewers who are paying attention to it during the review process. However, if you stumble upon such a reviewer, they will put some flag on your file, and all other reviewers will start to evaluate your apps for spam going forward. It seems like nothing is wrong with this approach, but it can lead to a distorted market.
In our case, we are waiting for years now to see Apple apply the same rules to our competition as it did to us. And the most ironic part is that throughout these years we've been ringing all the possible bells. Emails to Apple representatives, release notes, responses in resolution centre – nothing works.
For more details about our story check my Medium post. I have also written a second part which contains the timeline of my discussions with Apple representatives in which I highlighted competitors who violate 4.3, and Apple did nothing :(
So, the first problem with 4.3 is that it distorts the competition given how selective Apple is at implementing it.
The second problem is that the policy itself is too vague. Take our company, Theory Test Revolution, as an example. We build apps which help people pass their UK Driving Test.
Although we focus on theory tests, the reality is that our apps could be used as a platform to prepare for any multiple-choice test. Imagine if we wanted to release a couple of other MCQs apps. For example, to prepare for PADI diving exam and also to prepare for some pilot's licence exam.
How would 4.3 apply in this case? Would Apple demand that we bundle all of them in one app? How would we call it? :) "Any test you can imagine"? :)
There must be some limits. There are cases when marketing needs justify releasing separate apps even if their foundation is the same, as doing otherwise would simply confuse the users. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't care about fair competition enough. I guess their goal is to reduce the number of apps using this policy, with little regard to how fair this process is.
We are waiting for almost three years now to see our competitors being treated in the same way. And who knows – how much longer do we need to wait?
Had a call with Apple on July 13, 2020, 5 PM (GMT)
I had a conversation with the app review team regarding this matter today and I have concluded the following.
You can have the same codebase, same color, and same design for multiple apps but, a big BUT, is that you need to have some unique functionality in the app which provides a different experience to users.
They clearly said it's a difficult thing to do for developers and should take a longer time.
Only a way to know if some unique feature will work out is to send it for a review. It doesn't matter how long you have spent on developing that new feature. They also said they cannot help and is not permitted to insight anything beforehand.
They cleared that this is not a technical or logical issue to be resolved. For example, they are not going to check if the app icon or color is going to match with other app and decide it a spam or not spam but they care how users will be experiencing this app with the "WOW" factor or the app usefulness.
In short, the app must give another perspective to the user and the app should insist the user to use it because it has something new to give.
According to section 4.2.6 of: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#design
Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected unless they are submitted directly by the provider of the app’s content. These services should not submit apps on behalf of their clients and should offer tools that let their clients create customized, innovative apps that provide unique customer experiences. Another acceptable option for template providers is to create a single binary to host all client content in an aggregated or “picker” model, for example as a restaurant finder app with separate customized entries or pages for each client restaurant, or as an event app with separate entries for each client event.
So, rejoice! your apps can in fact be white labeled! they just must be:
submitted directly by the provider of the app’s content
There is nothing you can do to make Apple approve a copy of your app with only images and labels changed, it was their politics since iOS 3.
The only sure way you can do it is by creating a new developer account for the company you are selling the personalized version.
And B2B is also a viable option that also saves your client the 99$ yearly Apple bill.
I'm trying to develop an app that can be used to generate multiple apps. Let's say for now I'm doing an app for fruits, but tomorrow the client will want to create an app for vegetables, and the day after tomorrow for meats, and so on.
So what I'm doing right now is creating an app with same codebase and generating different Targets for each topic (fruits, vegetables, etc.) with its own settings.
That is working really good for now, but I want to make sure that my apps all passes the AppStore review guidelines. The one that concerns me is this one:
4.3 Spam
Don’t create multiple Bundle IDs of the same app. If your app has different versions for specific locations, sports teams, universities, etc., consider submitting a single app and provide the variations using in-app purchase. Also avoid piling on to a category that is already saturated; the App Store has enough fart, burp, flashlight, and Kama Sutra apps already. Spamming the store may lead to your removal from the Developer Program.
So I've read some posts that talks about the best way to accomplish doing multiple apps with same codebase, but hadn't seen anyone lately talking about the Apple restriction to this stuff.
If using different targets it's not a solution for Apple to approve, and you know one, I'll be glad to hear it! What I wanna avoid is making one app and make the user select the type of food he wants (following my example scenario). So my goal is having multiple apps for all different topics, and make Apple approve it.
Thanks in advance!
This is great question. I hope someone from apple team can answer this correctly.
My personal experience
Creation of separate app is perfectly fine as long as end app provides something unique compare to other bundleId. In my case We have 100+laws apps having each law app created using same code base but different data and from User perspective they need it in separate app compared to grouped app.
The visual schema should be different in each application. Please try to make different colors, logos, URL's / data for each flavor.
Each app name-should be unique ( Apple doesn't allow you sell app with same name). Adding hypen, or cosmetic name changes will be definitely candidate for app rejection.
Having said that there is no gurantee to get your app approved each time. In appeal also if you try to tell them that similar app is approved, you are at their mercy to get it approved.
Does apple allow apps that change appearance depending on what my servers provides?
For example: I have three customers that use the same app (my app) which is an inventory management system.
It would be kind of unnecessary to create three separate apps, so my idea is that since all inventory management happens remotely on a server,
I might as well create one app and let them log in to my inventory management system over the internet and supply the app with a layout-file (XML file or whatever) that changes the app appearance depending on who is logged in and which company the user works for.
Is this allowed or is it against Apple guidelines?
I think the typical solution to your problem is B2B distribution of your app. In which case you would have multiple versions of the app, but only one version would be available to each company.
Having said that, I do not believe Apple has guidelines against this sort of dynamic branding. However, the Review Guidelines change semi-regularly, so it's always best to go read them if you have a question.
It's also worth keeping in mind that the guidelines are the "spirit of the law" in that Apple will reject something that doesn't exactly break the rules but breaks what the rules were implying.
I have read in a business newspaper the following use case for iBeacon :
Clarks (US) - Prompting users to download their app as soon as they walk in-store
I saw nothing in terms of features that is dealing with such an opportunity, so I am quite confused.
On the other hand, the native AppStore application does support iBeacon (as seen in Apple Store to provide contextual services such as Genius Bar, etc). So it is technically possible that some sets of UUID x major x minor are used to invite users to discover an application with a specific store ID - and we still not will be at the OS level, but still at an application level.
So, what's the point ?
A future new release of iBeacon that is currently tested a kind of partnership between Apple and Clarks? Or am missing something ?
I think the simplest explanation is that the reporter got it wrong. The only reference to this I can find is this Marketing Week article,
Which says:
Beacons examples
Clarks (US) - Prompting users to download their app as soon as they walk in-store
As you have suggested, this is not possible without another app already on the phone that does the iBeacon detecting. While it is technically possible that the Apple store app could be helping do this, I think that does not sound at all like something Apple would agree to do. It is more likely that some marketing network has embedded something that does this in a common library in popular free downloadable games. This would only work for people have downloaded apps with this embedded library.
However, given that the claim of this article is dubious, and there is no available evidence to support it, I would be skeptical.
So basically my questions is: Can newsstand kit be used in one single app for several different magazine subscriptions? From the wwdc 504 session it doesn't really appear that this is true. In my understanding it appears that a magazine/newspaper subscription is coupled with 1 app. For instance the UIApplication setNewsstandIconImage only has a single UIImage parameter, so I can only deduce from this that one and only one newstand image can exist or rather be active for a single application. Am I missing something here, can someone confirm or deny my suspicions? Thanks in advance!
setNesstandIconImage sets the icon of your app. You app only ever has one icon, so it doesn't make sense to set it to multiple images. This, in an of itself, does not limit Newsstand to being used for one publication only. Just set the icon to whatever the newest issue is, regardless of publication.
While subscriptions are coupled to an app (you can only purchase a subscription from the app it's linked to), there is no limit to the number of subscriptions your app can offer. And what you do with those subscriptions is completely up to you. The only thing Apple will tell you is the subscription ID, if it's active, and when it was purchased (and a few other meta). What you download/enable/unlock based on that information is up to you.
So there's no technical reason your single app couldn't offer subscriptions to Time, Newssweek, and the Wall Street Journal (and maybe a fourth subscription to all three for a reduced price).
There may be usability or design reasons you wouldn't want to do that. But technically the API supports it.
You're right that the way Newsstand is today managed and displayed by iOS makes it more suitable for one-app-one-magazine apps than multi-magazine ones.
Technically making a multiple magazine Newsstand app is not impossible. All in all Apple limits pushes to one per day, but it doesn't mean that in your push notification you can add a payload that refers to multiple issues to be downloaded at a time: as far your app is moved in the background from the push notification you will be able, based on payload data, to schedule as many downloads as you want (they will be serially queued in the NK download queue).
Of course the single UIImage parameters is a real limitation. Normally you should add on it the latest downloaded issue: intact the rule is that the cover must be updated once the magazine is ready in the device, so typically you will update the cover after magazine download and installation. Eventually for a multiple-magazine app you can consider a generic cover and then keep the user informed of the latest download thanks to the badge in the icon.
Anyway I agree with you: the user experience is improved by Newsstand mainly on single-magazine apps.