We have a browser application and this application is using by different clients. Each client is using separate database and service. Regularly(quarterly) we are releasing the upgrade with enhanced features. But some of the clients may not upgrade to the latest. So different clients are using different versions of our product. There is no issue with this because each clients are using their own Database and service. Recently we build up a iOS app for the same application. In app store we can upload only the latest version of our app, how the clients in lower version can install respective version of their app? Latest version app may not work with lower version of service and Database
Different clients needs to install different versions of same app from app store.
In App Store Connect (where you manage your apps in the App Store), you can choose which versions you want to remain in the App Store after you release a new version. The purpose of this is to allow an older version to be downloaded in case the user have an older device or iOS version that don't support the new app version. - So I guess this feature is not really helping in your case.
I would suggest you make the same version for everyone, and then within the App (I assume your clients have a login) based on their user selects what you want to present them. - Connecting to their old database and deactivating the new features as an example. This will also give you the opportunity to showcase that there is new features which they may want to opt-in on.
You can release a completely new app for each version. Ex. YourApp 1.0, YourApp 2.0 (This is not uncommon, but it's usually more if the same app is radically changed/improved, and you want the old version to remain for some time until you retire it completely).
Hope this clarifies a bit :)
Related
Is it possible to maintain 2 application versions of the same application at the same time?
When a device gets too old and won't receive any updates from apple, you will stay stuck on the last version supported by your device. When downloading apps from the app store that require a higher version of iOS, it will automatically download the last compatible version from the app store. this is default behavior as stated: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/160089/how-does-ios-appstore-handle-multiple-version-targeting-different-version-of-ios/336985#336985
While we will mostly update our latest version, can we still update the 'legacy' versions of the app for older devices? can we still add features to the old versions (eg iOS <11) while adding the same features in our new app?
You can maintain two apps simply by giving them two different bundle ids.
But you probably cannot update the "old" app without recompiling it against the current iOS or prevent a modern user from seeing and downloading the "old" app.
To give an example, if your old app was 32 bit only, a 64 bit user cannot download it. But if you update it, you have to make it 64 bit.
I wonder if there is any way to distribute different versions of same app (same means same bundle id, same account) in Apple Appstore.
Lets say, I want to distribute, MyApp (com.stackoverflow.myapp) version v1.2 but there is already a version v1.1 open to public. Is it possible to keep both version open for public. And fixing issues and release different sub version like, v1.1.2 and v1.2.2.
As far as I know with single bundle its not possible. But still I am curious if there is any workaround.
When you release a new version on to the app store, you can now select an option for a "phased release", where the update is shown to current users incrementally over a 7 day period, but at the end of that seven day period the updated version is available to everyone. Also, new users will get the latest release when they install from the App Store.
You cannot maintain two "active" releases on the store.
If you want to test a new version or new features with a limited set of users then TestFlight may be an appropriate tool.
You can use whatever versioning system you want (such as semantic versioning), but you can't distribute multiple versions of an app at a time without uploading them to the App Store as 2 entirely different apps
I have my enterprise application (intranet web application) released long back. I also have an iPhone app on AppStore to provide some essential web application functionalities on mobile.
This iPhone app runs against the webapis exposed by this web application and is strongly dependent on it.
I have recently released a new version of my web application which is substantially different from the previous version (technically) and is a major release.
Although it caters to the same business functionality.
When I say a major release I mean the entities, signalR version etc are totally incompatible with the previous one.
Now I have to release a mobile app similar to the one I already have on AppStore but running against the new webapis exposed by the new version of webapplication.
I have to keep on supporting Clients using both of the versions of my enterprise application and cannot have a single iPhone app catering to both due to the strong incompatibility between the two versions of the webapplication.
But going through the Apple Developer site I found below
App Store Review Guidelines
2.20 Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program
I am really confused in releasing the new app which is similar to the previous one but
Differs substantially in code base
Has a different App Icon, AppName and AppID offcourse.
Is not intended for spamming but for business continuity.
Please help me as I am clueless on this.
Note: I have already gone through all the related posts on publishing similar iOS Apps but somehow didn't receive any inputs on this specific case.
While it would be preferable from an OOP point of view - if the UI and UX of both apps are the same - to allow the app's user (or the app itself) to select the correct data provider w.r.t. your web application's version, e.g. have interchangeable implementations that yield the same results depending on the backend, your approach might not be considered 'spamming' the store.
That guideline is intended to hold back developers just changing assets and names of apps (mostly games) and release basically the same codebase 100 times, maximizing efficiency and getting promoted as 'new app' regulary.
Seeing as you already made the conceptually bad decission to develop two different apps, submit both (or seeing as the old one might already be in the store, the new one) and see what review says; there's no harm in trying.
When submitting an update to an app to the app store (via iTunes Connect?), is the update necessarily a whole binary? Can an update come in the form of a patch? If a second version of an app shares a lot of assets and logic from the previous version, does all that logic/resources get reinstalled wholly regardless?
There are no patches. It's installed as an entire read-only bundle. The old bundle is replaced with the new bundle.
Application data is retained (ie. documents folder, NSUserDefaults).
As everyone said before me Apple does not supply a way to hot-patch native apps, moreover it has a clear restriction - "No remote code injection".
The only thing I can add is that hybrid apps which use a javascript platform allow you to remotely replace the JS file, so you can actually change functionality remotely.(without having to release a new version) other solutions I have seen are in the gray area and allow you to run Lua Script remotely to change app functionality.
We # Rollout.io have a different approach, we allow you to hot-patch production apps without code injection on native applications, you can read more on how the tech works here
Rollout is meant to help mobile developers solve production quality issues, hot-patching production apps, debugging production env, adding/removing analytics, etc.
Disclosure: I'm from the Rollout.io team.
iOS 6 now supports delta app updates. This is awesome, and makes Real Racing 3 (a 1.1GB app) update in about 30 seconds instead of 20 minutes!
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#qa/qa1779/_index.html
Q: How can I reduce the downloaded size of my app update for users
that already have the previous version installed?
A: Starting with iOS 6, the app store will automatically produce an
update package for all new versions of apps submitted to the store.
This package is optimized for updating an app from one version to
another, and contains files that have changed between the prior
version of an app and the new version of the app, excluding files that
have not changed.
When used optimally, an update package is significantly smaller to
download than the full package of the app and the update will install
more quickly. Also, in many cases, this mechanism allows updates to
large apps to be downloadable over cellular networks where app
downloads are subject to a size limit.
In addition to new content, the update package contains instructions
on how to transform the prior version of the app into the new version
of the app. New files will be added, modified files will be replaced
with their updated counterpart, and deleted files will be removed as
part of this transformation. As far as the developer and user are
concerned, this process is entirely transparent and the resulting
updated app will be indistinguishable from a full download of the
corresponding updated version of their app.
Further instructions for developers available at the link above.
I want to know if there's any trouble in creating a version control on my iOS app, because I'm going to make some huge upgrades in my webservices code and don't want that any user try to access the old version and the app crashes or don't work properly.
My idea is to create a service that capture the app version and than, if its an old version, the user can't access the app until the new version is installed.
I know that some android apps do this, but I didn't find any iOS app with this control.
Thanks!
Your app has a version, and you're writing the web service, so I don't see why you couldn't have your web service check the version and respond with a message that tells the app to show a message asking the user to upgrade.
That said, it would be much, much nicer for your users if you design the web service so that it detects the app version and then provides appropriate functionality for whichever version the user has. You might not want to continue support for the older version forever, but your users would probably appreciate having some time to upgrade when they choose to rather than when your app forces them to.