I was looking other big companies gallery on appstore on my iPhone. some of them have their logo on top with custom background color. I was wondering how, is it in the settings somewhere ? or we need to approach Apple and pay this.
See below :
These applications or developers are selected by Apple to be featured on their main page. This isn't a setting that you can control, or even something that you can pay for. The only way to get featured is if Apple thinks that your app is feature-worthy.
That being said, here's an article on how to get your app featured on the App Store: http://realmacsoftware.com/blog/how-to-get-featured-on-the-app-store
Here's another one that you might want to take a look at: http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/10/29/get-featured-app-store/
The customized artwork has been provided by developers who were editorially selected by Apple and there is no other way to have your page customised. Even having hundreds of apps on the App Store was not enough, hovewer Apple suggests being prepared for the opportunity and having your assets ready.
All the technical details about assets, dimensions and types of files may be found in the document called "App Store Design Specifications" which you can find in iTunes Connect.
This is interesting. I never seen this thing before and any settings in iTC to customise this page.
As you said, this must be something specific and for big companies only. There is a contract or something like that that allows them to customise their own page.
To be completely sure, contact the Apple Developers Team or ask in the Developer Forums. Maybe some Apple guy will confirm this.
Related
I had published an app to AppStore and the app has been listed in the search result. But due to some reason, my app doesn't display in the search result with the original name.
For example, if my app name is Hide&Seek and when I just put Hide Seek it displays the result but not for the original name. There wasn't any issue with the app search before.
What could be the reason? Any thoughts.
How does the App Store search algorithm work is something that only Apple knows about and the App Store team doesn't make any information about it public.
So, someone from the App Store team can answer the question for you and help you with that.
You should consider contacting the right team/person within Apple. Here's some pointers for you to get started.
(I'm assuming here that your app is published on the App Store and you have an active membership to the Apple Developer Program.)
Login into your Apple Developer Account Portal and click on the Contact Us link shown in the left sidebar
You may consider raising a Technical Support Incident. While it's meant for seeking code level help from the engineering team, if the above approach doesn't yield a result (which I suspect won't be the case), you may try considering this approach. An active developer program membership is eligible to two technical support incidents in a single membership year, and additional two incidents can be bough for $99.
You may want to consider contacting App Store Support.
I am hopeful you'd be pointed to the right team and they should be able to address your query.
We added Sign in with Apple capability to our app, but our submission got rejected by the App Store Review team with the following message:
We noticed an issue in your app that contributes to a lower quality user experience than Apple users expect:
Your app uses Sign in with Apple as a login option but does not use Sign in with Apple button design, branding and/or user interface elements appropriately as described in the Sign in With Apple Human Interface Guidelines.
A screenshot was added to the message:
The Apple logo has been downloaded from their guidelines site, so stating it doesn't use Apple button design or branding or apple user interface elements is wrong.
Why do they think this is "lower quality user experience"? Help would be greatly appreciated.
What are we doing wrong here?
The Apple logo has been downloaded from their guidelines site, so stating it doesn't use Apple button design or branding or apple user interface elements is wrong
Probably this specific guideline gave your app away:
From the Sign in with Apple Human Interface Guidelines:
Prominently display a Sign in with Apple button. Make a Sign in with Apple button no smaller than other sign-in buttons, and avoid making people scroll to see the button.
Also, while Apple hasn't explicitly asked to display the Sign in with Apple as the first button, they have asked for a prominent placement. This could be open to interpretation, and if the App Store review team feels that the placement is not prominent they may reject a submission on that ground.
Additionally, the Sign in with Apple button appears smaller in size compared to the buttons for the other login options.
It would also be advisable to go through the linked Sign in with Apple Human Interface Guidelines document and make your best attempt at interpreting it and adhering to the guidelines.
I do not know much regarding Apple specifications for applications features and/or logins, however, I have seen a lot of login with Apple buttons, and many of them look similar to this:
Although you may have included the Apple logo, the companies brand toward this specific type of login service may be different from their overall branding as an Apple. I would suggest using similar designs as on the image I posted.
For large corporations, branding doesn't just mean the logo, it means you identify the logo and there is a feeling you get when you see something commonly associated with their company. No offense but pressing on the logo that you have posted does not provide a user with the feeling that is commonly associated with "Apple" which is usually minimalistic, but with a "Brand name" or "Identifier" along with it. In this case the Apple logo with a few words saying Sign in With Apple. Changing to this format may help
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 am beginning looking into adding in-app purchasing to my iPad app (Objective-C, not swift) with the files being hosted by Apple, but I don't see anything that says it can do what I want it to do.
I do not see how to specify a customer-viewable thumbnail, just the ones for apple staff to see for review.
My app is a graphics program, and the in-app purchases are clipart, so the user will need to be able to see the thumbnail to know if they want to buy it. I am not including the files in the app bundle, because that would be huge, and I plan on constantly adding more clipart.
At this point the only thing I can think of is putting thumbnails on a web server and fetching ones that match a particular product ID, but I would think/hope that there is a simpler solution.
(also, if anyone can point me to a nice newish tutorial that is better than the Apple documentation, that would help too!)
EDIT:
Do I get some kind of award for asking a question nobody can seem to answer?
A free iPad maybe? Huh huh? :)
Unfortunately, Apple doesn't provide metadata for hosted downloads beyond what is available for non-hosted content. I'm afraid that you'll need to host your thumbnails on a server under your own control (keying it to the product identifier).
On the plus side, it's probably easier and quicker to update thumbnails on your own server than dealing with iTunes Connect!
We have two Apps live on the Appstore. One for free, and one full featured version which is offered to buy. The free app has a In-App-Store so the user may update to the full featured version.
Actually I am thinking about stoping development of the full featured App (which is identical
to the free one at code level). We don't want to blame our customers. It would be nice to give them a redemption code for the free app to unlock all features. All features which will be unlocked this way are bound to the redemption code. All customers who did In-App purchases are "registered" by Apple, so the purchase will be remembered for all devices. Finally all In-App customers would have an advantage over the Pro-Version customers, which is not acceptable for us.
Is it possible to have one (hidden) free In-App purchase, which the user could "buy" if the redemption code is working? Maybe a better question is: What is the best practice for putting two similar Apps together without bugging the customers?
Not possible, I'm afraid. There is no good solution as far as I am aware (I still have a paid and a "lite" version for this reason).
You could raise a bug report with Apple (http://bugreporter.apple.com) but there's no saying if of when they'll ever make a change.
How about this idea:
Add a URL scheme to your lite app which, when invoked, enables the full featured version.
In your next update for the paid app add a button to "Enable all features in the lite version" that invokes that URL scheme (UIApplication's openURL:). This will open the lite app which will then enable all features.
One problem: if somebody else figures out what that URL scheme is, he could write a simple little app that just uses that URL scheme to enable the features in your lite app. Which means that person could get all the features without ever buying your paid app.
To prevent this I would implement this URL scheme in such a way that it only works when called with a secret parameter, maybe the hash of the device's MAC address and a salt. (Not sure if this is the best way, but that would be my first idea)