iOS app updating process - ios

Apologies if this has been asked before but I couldn't find anything specific to my situation..
I've been tasked with creating a new version of an app already on the market place.
Unfortunately, the client only has access to the binary and not the source code as the previous development team didn't provide this information.
The client has been unable to get in touch with the previous development team so I can assume getting a hold of the original source code is off the table.
I was wondering, in a case like this, how does the iOS upgrade procedure work?
As an additional question, is it possible for the new app to access the data stored by the old app and if so, can anyone point me in the right direction on how to go about doing this please?
Thank you!

To make the update you must have the same bundleIdentifier as the current version. This will be displayed in iTunes Connect.
To get the stored data, you should use a tool called iFunBox.
Here's a little tutorial on how you can do it:
Steps for using iFunBox
Download the current version of the app
You should also use the apps functions, so the app saves the data you wish to extract.
Connect your iDevice to your Mac/PC
Download and install iFunBox (link here: http://www.i-funbox.com)
Launch the program and navigate to your device
Press "User Applications", then your application
Find the data the app stores
The NSUserDefaults plist-file is located in "Library" -> "Preferences" and is called com.yourCompany.appName.plist
A lot of apps also stores files in yourApp/Documents/
You can also explore the apps folder and look for the data you need. Hope this helps :)

If you have access to the iTunes Connect account, with which this app was published the problem is not too large: you can update app with any binary that have the same application id (bundle identifier) and larger version number.
You definitely can have access to the data of previous version - either it's stored in NSUserDefaults or app Documents folder etc., but you should have a clue of its format (e.g. keys of NSUserDefaults) - some reverse engineering of binaries can help.

You must know the bundleIdentifier and use the same otherwise the apps wont update.
The version number must also be higher than the current one
Also the data saved in the old app can be read but you need to know in which format it is.

Related

There is any way to save data even app reinstall on ios without keychain?

I want to save some data even after app uninstalls and installed again.
I don't want to use keychain because of some reason personally.
Or Is there any way to get unique key per device like UUID ? or per device per app ?(From ios 10 )
Could you help me, please?
You can save the details to a file and export that file using the Share extension in iOS application. Whenever the application is installed again then the app can import the data again from that file.
This is just a workaround but I strongly recommend Keychain in this case.

Updating iPhone app removed the older version data

I am developing a social application for iOS using Objective-c. But when I published the newer version of my app and upgraded it using App Store, all of my older application data has been removed while every thing in both versions is the same like Bundle Identifier, Provisioning Profile, Signing Certificate. But I am confused why some thing like that happened. I was wondering if anyone could help me. This is too important for me, because this problem forces users to register again in the application.
update: I save data in the documents and also using core data
It might not be cleared just the path of the files changed, for example lets say you save the path of a photo like this :
/data/Containers/Data/Application/B42FE84A-E031-4A2C-AEA7-8D77AEAA389C/Documents/Photo.jpg
when you update the app the path will look like this because iOS will change app documents folder
/data/Containers/Data/Application/757455E1-355B-4040-8ABB-85F39D650A1E/Documents/Photo.jpg
so the file still exist but the path have changed and since you are saving the path the app won't find it because it was changed
i recommend saving only file name not the whole path

How to access Xcode database from iPhone app

This is my first iPhone app. I'm using Xcode 7.3.
In the app I used this tutorial to create an sql database using the app (when the user gives permission by pressing a button, it creates the .db file).
Now I would like to know how I can download the database from the app.
Here is why:
The app will be downloaded on someone's device (not via the app store). It is supposed to collect data from a wearable device and store it in the database.
However I don't know how to access that data later on when I have the user's phone. Apparently the db lives in
/var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/###/Documents
I read that one method is "jailbreaking." But I have never done that and this is not my phone I'm dealing with, it's a client's, so I don't feel comfortable hacking it. Is there another way? Possibly through the terminal (this is how I did it with the android app, using adb)?
Or is there another way I can go about saving the database so that it is accessible/retrievable?
The first answer is correct but incomplete :
Once you have download the Container, the extension is .xcappdata, so you need to right-click on it and select show the package.
Then browse into /library/Application support/ to find your database in .sqlite
You can try to connect the device to your Mac, then in XCode, go to Window, Devices, select your device and app bundle and click "Download Container...".
To see the database, you could use SQLite.

Is there a way to get the search result i get in the App Store app on the iOS device? ( How to get the ipa file of "App Store"? )

Updated on 2015-11-1:
One solution I am trying is to start App Store using Applium, so that I can record/monitor iOS UI elements. just like what we did Selenium.
Let's treat App Store as a standard iOS app, is it possible to:
uninstall App Store from my iphone.
get the ipa file of App Store
unzip the ipa file and get the app bundle
run Appium with App Store's app file
Is it possible to get App Store 's ipa file?
======
I want to know the position of my apps when I search on the App Store. When I use the iTunes Search API. I notice the result returned from the iTunes search API for a specific search term are different from the result on the iOS App Store app.
I found This Question is also about this, the owner of that has find out the reason about this condition.
But there is no answer to solve this problem.
Actually I've been trying to build the search request, but it cames that the iOS Appstore is using the HTTPs request, so I don't know what to do with this.
Hope someone can help, I'll be very appreciate.
There is at this time no way to specify that you want the results you would get from an iOS device.
The most obvious solution that comes to mind is to build a search request that appears as I it came from ios in your app code.
I'm sure its possible to determine that by basically proxying an actual iPhone using say your router on your home network to log the traffic from an iphone.
Once you have that you can then basically reverse engineer the call in your app code.
As you can refer from Apple's guidance: Search API, there are too many ways of parameter combination.(Parameters includes:term, country, media, entity, attribute, callback, limit, lang, version, explicit, etc.) So it's almost impossible to find out the way of combination that App Store is adapting so as to get the same search results as users get directly from App Store.
You might want to see if you can get this to work:
In Mac OS X:
Launch iTunes
Under Library menu, click on [Apps] menu.
The iTunes will display all installed app
Right-click on one of those apps
Then click “Show in Finder” option
An alternative to this is simply open the directory of .ipa files stored by using this path: User/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications
This probably only works with apps you downloaded, but it is worth trying.
It's possible to listen in on https connections by installing a trusted ssl certificate on the device and running traffic through a proxy - basically performing a man-in-the-middle attack on yourself. I've previously used Charles Proxy to do this - here's the guide how to set this up. That way you should be able to see exactly what request the App Store app is sending and what response it is getting. And thus it should also be possible to spoof this request and parse the results elsewhere.

Acessing system information from frameworks in iOS Developer Library

As the title says, I am trying to create an app(personal development) and try to see what kind of system information or user data can be retrieved from phone. For now I am using the stimulator provided. So far what I am able to do is to retrieve information using the Address Book and UIKit Framework such as contact details and System Name/Version etc.
Is there any system information/user data that I missed out because I have yet to know of any more frameworks that allows retrieving of any information from the phone/Stimulator. I am not able to test EventKit Framework(the only other framework that I know) due to the fact that I am deploying the app in the stimulator which does not have the required apps. (Will be trying on jailbroken iphone in the later stages).
Also, I have yet to find any information of accessing the .sqlitedb /.db/.plist files programmatically instead of using any software tools as I would like to access the files such as messages, phone history through my app that I created. If this is possible, I would also like to know if accessing these .sqlitedb /.db files/.plist is only applicable if I deploy my app in the jailbroken phone /Applications folder which does not have sandbox or is it also applicable in the stimulator itself?
This will be definitely helpful to you to get access the call/sms/email details by reading the .sqlite database. Here is a tutorial.
i know providing links are discouraged here however these apple and wiki
links will be helpful to you.
thanks

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