I have created an application for my customer. We have published the application with my account. Now, they want to change the developer name as their company's name. Is there a way to change the developer name? Can I move my application to their business account so that Developer name changes to their business name?
Yes, you can transfer the app to other since WWDC 2013.
Also, you can call the Apple Support to change the Seller Name.
Here is a video about this: App Transfer Tutorial.
My apps initially appeared in the App Store with the wrong seller name. I don't personally own a credit card, so a family member who did paid my developer subscription. While my correct name appeared elsewhere, under Seller it showed the name from the credit card. I used one of the contact options in iTunes Connect to request a name change, which was applied within a few days.
On the current Contact page, the Contracts and Legal category includes Request Name/Address update. Try that.
You'll certainly find it easier to rename your account than to move the app to a different account. Here's what they say about that.
I sold my app to another developer and can no longer distribute it on the App Store. Can I transfer the app to the new developer's iTunes Connect account?
No, you can’t transfer the app to another developer account on iTunes Connect. To add the app to another account, remove the app from the current account and upload it to the new iTunes Connect account.
Note that uploading the app to a new iTunes Connect account will disable current customers from receiving automatic and free updates of your application. All customer reviews, rating, and ranking information will be reset. You will not be able to reuse the app name and SKU in the old account. If you have uploaded a binary or used the app with the iAd Network, your Bundle ID will not be reusable either.
This is only applicable for the part of the OP's question:
Is there a way to change the developer name?
The most simple way I found to CHANGE the developer name was by filling out a request on this page:
Contact Us Page
Then select from the option:
Enrollment, Membership, and Account -> Account Updates and Renewals
I just told them which names I would like to user, First name and surnaame.
Here is Apple Support email regarding same question;
As an individual you cannot change your first and last name, you can
only have your legal name appear in the App store. I can suggest to
you to enroll as a company, witch would mean you can use your company
name instead of your own name, but first you would need to check that
you meet our initial migration requirements:
You are a founder or cofounder of your company.
Your company does not already hold an active or expired company membership.
Your company does not operate as a sole proprietorship, DBA, fictitious name, trade name, or branch.
If you have paid apps, you have agreed to the latest Paid Applications contract in Agreements, Tax, and Banking in iTunes
Connect.
You are eligible to obtain a DUNS Number for your company: https://developer.apple.com/support/D-U-N-S.
If it is the case and you meet our requirements please feel free to
contact us again so we can migrate your account into a company.
If you need to transfer your app to another developer account, that is now possible. Since WWDC 2013, iTunes Connect now supports transferring apps from one developer to another, keeping exactly this situation in mind. Go to the iTunes Connect homepage for more information. There is also a video tutorial that Apple has provided on this matter.
Personally I wanted to changed my real first & last name to a company/brand name, having an individual account. That's what, as of 2020, Apple's support says:
"Developers enrolled as individuals will sell apps on the App Store using their personal legal name. There are two ways to change your name to a company name:
Have your company enroll in its own Apple Developer Program membership, and then transfer your apps to that membership.
Migrate your membership from an individual to an organization."
Related
I have recently uploaded a new application to iTunes Connect for the approval process. Its version is 1.0. Today the binary was rejected and the following was mentioned in the resolution center.
The seller and company names associated with your app do not reflect the name,
“Secured” in the app or its metadata, as required by section 1.2 of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement.
Next Steps
Your app must be published under a seller name and company name that reflects the Secured brand. If you have developed these apps on behalf of a client, please advise your client to add you to the development team of their Apple Developer account.
Once created, you cannot change your seller name or company name in iTunes Connect. For assistance with changing your company name or seller name, you will need to contact iTunes Connect through the Contact Us page.
We have generated the application using the proper profiles. Any idea as to when this issue is raised by Apple? We could not get any proper information about the reason and the way to resolve it. Does this have anything to do with the application name being similar to some other application named as "Secured" and out app name being Secured?
I found a comment in Apple Developer forum, and it works for me.
rajveer123
Mar 14, 2017 10:46 AM
(in response to nikhileshrayapureddy)
Hi,
I might be able to help on this. I just got my app approved and had
the same reason. You need to make sure, that if your app is called
XYZ and you are the owner 123, that 123 owns all copyright for the app
and it's content within. If the content is third-party make sure you
comment this in comments box. It's quite reasonable, as I might upload
an app called Windows for iOS and do not even own the copyright for
this brand. Also, make sure you write the correct name etc. in the
copyright box, who owns the brand. It's not the app name, but the
publisher or if you develop for someone, it's his company/client name.
I don't think it's that complictaed with Apple, you just need to be
straight forward. I hope this helps someone!
Link: https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/73820
From the comment, I did as below:
In "Prepare for submission", scroll to Copyright area, copy your
team name and paste it as Copyright of this application.
Resubmit your application.
In my case, it took 2 days to get my application approved for sale in Apple store. Have your patience.
UPDATED: Now, apple allows us upload a certificate file to show their authentication of this app then we can use the our owner app name.
You typically get this kind of rejection when you submit an app that has some known brand in the name of the app, icon, inside the app or in the metadata. For example, if your company is "Milkshakes Ltd." and you use "Nike" brand in the name of your app "Milkshakes - Nike Edition".
This typically happens when a company asks you - the developer - to create and app for them and you are trying to release the app under your developer account. But the app needs to be released under the company developer account (the company needs to enroll Apple Developer Program if it has not yet done so). That is why Apple advises the following:
If you have developed these apps on behalf of a client, please advise your client to add you to the development team of their Apple Developer account.
Releasing apps under a different account is against Apple Developer Program License Agreement:
For the sake of clarity, You may authorize contractors to develop Applications on Your behalf, but any such Applications must be owned by You, submitted under Your own developer account, and distributed as Applications only as expressly permitted herein. You are responsible to Apple for Your contractors’ activities under Your account (e.g., adding them to Your team to perform development work for You) and their compliance with this Agreement. Any actions undertaken by Your contractors arising out of this Agreement shall be deemed to have been taken by You, and You (in addition to Your contractors) shall be responsible to Apple for all such actions.
However, based on your description, it does not look this is your case. I don't know about any well known "Secured" or "Safe" brands. You did not write your company name, there might be a conflict too. I would try to clarify the issue with Apple Review Team by responding to the issue in Resolution Center. They might point you to the brand you are in conflict with. Or it might have been rejected by a mistake.
We ran into the same issue. Basically it's a trademark issue. I'm not arguing if it's right or wrong. But the solution:
Either you have to list in the developer account of your customer.
Or legally acquire the trademark and brand name of your customer (may be limited for the purpose of AppStore/PlayStore/Digital Marketing)
I know point 2 sounds a bit off. I agree it is.
Let's take an example:
Developer: FooBar Software
App: No1 Pharma
In AppStore listing, the seller of the app is the developer. So from the user point of view, if you look at the listing on AppStore, it would say the app "No1 Pharma" is being sold by "FooBar Software". This doesn't sound right.
Another case:
The publishing rights of Harry Potter Books (acc. to wiki) is owned by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Scholastic (US)
Developer: Bloomsbury Publishing
App: Harry Potter
This will sound right, in spite of the fact that the seller name and app name did not match. The listing would read "Bloomsbury Publishing" is the seller of the app "Harry Potter". This sounds right. So Bloomsbury can publish all the trademarks/brands it owns as different apps in it's developer account.
Perhaps AppStore might choose to differentiate the developers from sellers. Because developers are not sellers. That's the reality.
Let's say IBM develops the "Harry Potter" app for "Bloomsbury", then the listing should read:
Developer: IBM
Seller: Bloomsbury
App: Harry Potter
Hope this helps.
I had the same issue. They accepted it after I changed the individual membership account to a company/Organisation membership & uploaded it again. If your product is a brand which is registered, it should be a company account which reflects the brand name of your product
I have the same issue and it was resolved, Now when you develop an app on apple store it would be one of these two options:
You are developing it on behalf of another person or organization and either your account is an individual or organization you must provide apple with the apple account for the client because this client is the real owner for the app.
The second option is that you develop this app for your self and you are the owner for it, in this case, if you are an individual you must inform apple that you own this as individual (this is my case) and they will resolve it to you, you can reach the support team by creating a case on the resolution center and resubmit your app again. I believe similar steps should be made for organization account.
But an important thing to take it into account, that you are the real owner of this app and you are not using other one brand.
Hope this helps
We have two companies A and B under one group. Can I submit My App to app store for Company B using Company A's Developer/iTunes Connect Account?
Or do I need to create a Different Developer Account using a different DUNS Number. Or can I transfer app in future to company B's Account as it will take time for us to compete all legal procedure.
Will Apple approve that? This app will be Free on the App Store.
You should create a separate Developer Account for the the Company B and use it to submit your Company B application to the App Store (for review).
Otherwise your app might get reject by Apple with a statement similar than the following:
The seller and company names associated with your app do not reflect the name, "Company B" in the app or its metadata, as required by section 1.2 of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement.
The relevant section of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement:
For the sake of clarity, You may authorize contractors to develop Applications on Your behalf, but any such Applications must be owned by You, submitted under Your own developer account, and distributed as Applications only as expressly permitted herein. You are responsible to Apple for Your contractors’ activities under Your account (e.g., adding them to Your team to perform development work for You) and their compliance with this Agreement. Any actions undertaken by Your contractors arising out of this Agreement shall be deemed to have been taken by You, and You (in addition to Your contractors) shall be responsible to Apple for all such actions.
However, if the Company B is not a well known brand, Apple might not notice this violation and might approve the app. I am not advising doing that, but there are many apps violating this.
It is also possible to transfer an app from one developer (company) to another. To learn more see iTunes Connect Developer Guide - Transferring and Deleting Apps. I have never personally done it so don't know how much hassle it is. If you are thinking about transferring the app later, it might easier to release the app under the correct company in the first place.
Also note that if you have not yet released any app under the Company A account, the first time you release an app, you need to pick a seller name that is used for all apps released under this account and cannot be changed (unless you contact iTunes Connect support). So if you pick "Company B" as the seller name, all the future apps will have "Company B" as the seller name.
I uploaded my app on iTunes connect. But they rejected my app and they are telling that "The seller and company name associated with the app don't reflect the name". Can anyone tell me how to do it. Thanks in advance.
Contact Apple
The easiest way to change your seller name is to contact Apple developer support. If there is a typo or inaccuracy in your seller name they should be willing to change it. Back before I released Card Share my individual account had a seller name for a fictitious entity that did not exist. Since it wasn’t my legal name, Apple support was willing to make the name change. I contacted support and within 24 hours my seller name was changed and updated in the App Store. Here is the email to contact Apple about seller name changes and other iTunes related support: itunesconnect#apple.com
New Account + App Transfer
Outside of contacting Apple, there is a more hands-on approach. Before WWDC in 2013, Apple announced the ability to transfer apps between developer accounts. By creating a new developer account with a new name and transferring your apps to that account, you can effectively change your seller name. There are a few restrictions on apps that can be transferred.
Is there anyway with my developer program to change the name that appears under my application name?
A picture is like a thousand words so...
Contact Apple
The easiest way to change your seller name is to contact Apple developer support. If there is a typo or inaccuracy in your seller name they should be willing to change it. Back before I released Card Share my individual account had a seller name for a fictitious entity that did not exist. Since it wasn’t my legal name, Apple support was willing to make the name change. I contacted support and within 24 hours my seller name was changed and updated in the App Store.
Here is the email to contact Apple about seller name changes and other iTunes related support: itunesconnect#apple.com
New Account + App Transfer
Outside of contacting Apple, there is a more hands-on approach. Before WWDC in 2013, Apple announced the ability to transfer apps between developer accounts. By creating a new developer account with a new name and transferring your apps to that account, you can effectively change your seller name. There are a few restrictions on apps that can be transferred.
Reference
I've had a look around SO and Google but can't find a definite and specific answer, maybe it's supposed to be obvious!
But, I haven't submitted an app to the store before so when I went to add one through iTunes Connect, the first thing it says is
Specify the company or developer name to display on the App Store for your apps.
The company name cannot be changed, so be sure to enter the correct name.
Now, does setting that company name apply to ALL apps I upload after setting it or does it ask you this question and let you set it every time you add a new app?
If it sets it for all apps, does it have to match the company name I've used to register my iOS developer account with? When I created the account I gave the name Company Ltd, so would I strictly have to use Company Ltd when setting the company name to be displayed on the App Store?
Many thanks.
Normally the company name will (and can) not change after it is set (well they can do it but they request a load of legal papers and stuff).
However, if you indeed run a company that should not matter and you should already know what you are doing. You have to be careful though, as if you pretend to be a company and you are not (e.g. as individual developer), you might run into legal issues which can cause some trouble to say the least (even if you "only" plan to release free apps).
In iTunes Connect, when you add a new application, they specify :
"[...] name to display on the App Store for your app*s* [...]"
apps is plural, so it means it's for all this account's apps.
You cannot do it online, you have to request apple to do is, by calling them.
To request a migration of your individual developer membership to a company developer membership, first make sure that you meet our initial migration requirements:
You have an active individual developer program membership.
Your company does not operate as a sole proprietorship, DBA, fictitious name, trade name, or branch.
You are a founder or cofounder of your company.
You have authority to bind your company to Apple Developer Program agreements.
Your company does not already hold an active or expired company membership.
If you have paid apps, you have agreed to the latest Paid Apps contract in the Contracts, Tax, and Banking module of iTunes Connect.
You are able to obtain a DUNS number for your company: https://developer.apple.com/support/D-U-N-S.
If you do not meet our migration requirements, you may use a separate Apple ID to enroll your company in an Apple Developer Program.
To proceed with your migration request, contact apple by phone (https://developer.apple.com/contact/phone) or send them an email with the following information:
Confirm that you meet the initial migration requirements listed above.
Provide the name of the company to which you would like to migrate your individual membership.
After your information has been reviewed and accepted, they will send you an email with instructions for completing the migration. During this process, you will be unable to access the Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles portal.
If you need to update your individual bank information, do so before you start the company migration.
Hope this helps.