I am trying to understand the role of the first part of the AppID for iOS apps.
This part was formerly known as the "Bundle Seed ID", but is now often referred to as the AppID Prefix.
A while ago (iOS 5?), Apple made some changes in both their portal and their documentation and started to recommend using the "Team ID" (unique per developer account) as the AppID Prefix. This is simple and straightforward for new developers with new apps.
But what is the the best practice for handling existing apps with regards to the AppID prefix?
I know that it is not possible to change BundleID (= the second part of the AppID) between two app versions, but is it safe to change the prefix between app versions?
Note that I am not referring to replacing a "wildcard AppID", e.g. ABC1234567.*, to an explicit AppID using the same prefix, e.g. ABC1234567.com.mycompany.myapp. There is tons of information about this (most of it outdated, though). I am thinking about changing the complete AppID, e.g. ABC1234567.com.mycompany.myapp, for an existing app by replacing the prefix with my Team ID, e.g. DEF7654321.com.mycompany.myapp.
I think I have read somewhere that it should be OK to change the prefix for existing apps, except in the special case that the app is using the keychain to store data. If this is true, the easiest way to handle the prefix for existing apps would be to migrate to the new Team ID when it's time to release next update. When all my apps are migrated, I can continue using the Team ID (as Apple recommends for new apps) and finally forget about all this mess.
Can anyone confirm this?
If you can shed some more lights upon the concept of the AppID prefix, and what it is actually used for on an iOS device (except the keychain which I already know about), I would be happy if you could write a comment. Perhaps we could build up the full understanding of this by adding bits and pieces from different sources. Sadly, the Apple documentation is very thin in this area.
(There is another similar question: Can I change the Bundle Identifier in my app after it's been approved? But that is mainly focusing on the BundleID, i.e. the second part of the AppID, so this is not a duplicate, even though some of the answers and comments are touching upon this topic.)
My conclusion, as of today, is that it is completely safe to replace the AppID prefix by a new one, with the exception of apps using the keychain. This opens up for migrating the prefix for all my exiting apps on the App Store to the new TeamID based prefix.
This conclusion is based on the following input:
A discussion I had with Apple's developer support a couple of weeks
ago. They told me that there should not be any problems changing the prefix, except for apps using the keychain.
A test I did, using ad-hoc distribution, verifying that an existing app on a test device did not lose any data when it was updated to a new version with another prefix.
The fact that I have successfully uploaded new versions, with replaced prefix, of two
of my existing apps without any problems so far.
The status of the two "live" apps that I have changed, is that they have been approved in the review. However, they are currently waiting in "Pending Developer Release", since I am waiting for a third app to get ready in order to sync the release with that one.
If I see any kind of problems when they go live on the App Store, I will of course update this answer.
Update:
The two apps were released successfully more than three weeks ago. The roll-out worked as expected and I have not received any user complaints.
In summary, the answer is YES, this is completely safe!
Apple published a new tech note on February 12th 2014 confirming that it's possible (and safe*) to change Prefixes yourself for Wildcard App IDs, but it's still impossible to do it yourself for Explicit App IDs.
However, they say you can contact member center maintainers if you would like them to change your Prefixes for Explicit App IDs.
Gonna include this part here in case they change their mind again:
All other App IDs will require the assistance of the member center maintainers - if you are not using a wildcard App ID, then you should contact the iOS member center maintainers for assistance. Here are the steps you can use to do that:
Go to https://developer.apple.com/contact/.
Submit a request by clicking the link under Enrollment and Account.
* Keep in mind that if your app stores data in Keychain, changing app ID prefix will result in one-time Keychain data loss.
Related
A previous developer created and uploaded our app with our dev team. They then transferred it to our client's account and released it. However it kept our Team ID. When uploading to the App store, I get the following:
"Potential Loss of Keychain Access - The previous version of software
has an application-identifier value of ['XXXXXX.XXXXXXX'] and the new
version of software being submitted has an application-identifier of
['YYYYYY.XXXXXXX']. This will result in a loss of keychain access."
I can accept losing Keychain Access as I understand that there is little that can be done here and it may not affect this app.
However, my question is, could current users be affected? There are no passwords in the app or any user details stored, it is mostly an informative app. I assume it won't stop them updating the app or block them from using their current build? These users have paid for the app, so if they stop getting access all of a sudden, they might be upset!
i.e. I'm not sure about the following technologies from Apple:
Important: The only apps that can ignore this warning without
consequences are those that do not use technologies that rely on the
App ID prefix, like keychain access, Handoff, and UIPasteboard
sharing.
I think you need to check with the developers to see if they are using anything related to the app ID prefix.
As stated by Apple, the app Prefix is critical to using a couple of their capabilities.
Basically, most of the technologies listed are all about inter-app communication. If you only offer one iOS / Mac app, you aren't doing any special interactions with other apps with the same app prefix, and you don't have anything to worry about. Pasteboard is basically a shared clipboard used to share information between apps by the same developer. Handoff is about syncing state between apps on different platforms (e.g. Sharing Safari tabs between your Mac and your iPhone).
The other thing to worry about would be the first error you show. That error means that if your app is storing any information in the keychain, the new version of the app would lose access to anything that was stored in the keychain by the old version of the app. If, like you say, your app really isn't using the keychain to store information (it doesn't have to just be passwords, FYI), you don't need to worry about that either.
I would definitely have the developers check for anything related to the keychain to confirm, as well as anything related to the PasteBoard or Handoff.
EDIT
As to the affect on current app users, they should not be affected if you are not using any of the above technologies. Existing users will get the update and should not notice any difference. More on that in this answer.
I'm stuck in a slightly weird situation. When our app was first created, nobody really knew what they were doing and I'm trying to clean things up a bit.
In the iOS developer center, it seems that there are two App IDs for my app. I think I can delete one of them, because the other one is the one that is actually being used, but I'm not 100% sure.
Here is the App ID that I think is actually being used in our released app:
Here is the "other App ID":
The annoying thing is that the "other App ID" seems to match the bundle ID of the app and xCode seems to be trying to use it as the application-identifier when the app is submitted to the store. I don't want the application identifier to change.
Is it safe to delete the other app id? Can I force xCode to use the correct application identifier? How can I tell which app ID is actually being used by our released app?
Edit:
Why this arose is because after submitting our latest build to the store for testflight, I got this notification:
Dear developer,
We have discovered one or more issues with your recent delivery for
"My Cool App". Your delivery was successful, but you may wish to
correct the following issues in your next delivery:
Potential Loss of Keychain Access - The previous version of software
has an application-identifier value of ['ABCDE.MyCoolApp'] and the new
version of software being submitted has an application-identifier of
['QWERTY.MyCoolApp']. This will result in a loss of keychain access.
After you’ve corrected the issues, you can use Xcode or Application Loader to upload a new binary to iTunes Connect.
Regards, The App Store team
The fact that the application-identifier is changing, and that it appears to be using the "prefix" as part of this value, suggests that it was using the first app ID, but now it is going to use the second.
Do you have access to login in to the iTunes Connect for that account? That's what you really need to verify the bundle ID (aka app ID) of the released app.
Login at itunesconnect.apple.com, click on apps, click on your specific app, click on the 'more' tab, click on 'about this app' it will show you the bundle ID being used for the released app. Feel free to delete the OTHER app ID out of your account. Not the one in iTunes Connect :)
The bundle ID in your Xcode project can always be modified to match whatever app ID you'd like, as well as you can easily regenerate any necessary provisioning profiles for any app ID. (of course, you should make it match the existing one in iTunesConnect if you want to release an update for that app)
Edit:
It sounds like you've been able to match up the app ID, but not the prefix. The way prefixes are assigned has changed over the years and now they are all team based. You can read this technical note and see if it will help you resolve the warning you encountered.
Developer Link
The primary difference between your 2 App ID is the ID:
the first one has '*' as ID. It means it is a wildcard ID. You can create multiple applications using different bundle identifiers with the same provisioning profile using this ID. But you don't have access to specific capabilities such as Push Notifications, in-app purchase (because multiple apps will share the same profile
the second one is fully qualified and can be used only with the app whose bundle identifier is 'MyCoolApp' and can have access to full capabilities of apps.
Note that your app ID naming convention should be in reverse url format as Apple advices: myCompany.myInternalGroup.myAppId.appFlavor for instance.
I'm using now the new Apple service for testing apps.
I know that the process to send an app for test is:
Create an ID
Create the certificates
Create an app in iTunesConnect
Archive, upload and invite internal or external test.
But not all apps that I create in my account (iTunesConnect) go to be public; because a lot of my app finish published in the accounts of my costumers.
In this way in my iTunesConnect I have a lot of: (for example)
App1 Test
App2 Test
App3 test
....
I want to delete these, is there a way?
If what I wrote is wrong, so there is another way more intelligent to follow, tell me please!
Unfortunately, you cannot delete apps from iTunes Connect unless one or more versions of the app have been approved by Apple's review team. According to their documentation:
You can delete your app if there is at least one approved version of the app
Honestly, aside from the annoyance of seeing old unused apps there, there isn't much of a problem with what you're doing. What you could do to reduce the number of "junk" apps in your portal is to re-use app identifiers after the TestFlight testing time of 30 days expires (and, of course, you'll have to clear out those beta testers).
You can Not delete it before atleast one of the versions of your app is approved!
Apparently, other people can't use your undeleted App names. I had an old one on my account that another Developer wanted to use. I got this letter from Apple:
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please include **** in the subject line of any future correspondence on this matter.
On 3/4/2016, we received a notice from **** (“Complainant”) that
Complainant believes your application named "****" infringes
Complainant’s intellectual property rights. In particular,
Complainant believes you are infringing its app name, thereby blocking
Complainant from using it on the App Store.
I have an app published on the AppStore and I want to migrate it to an enterprise developer account for in-house distribution. I read in the enterprise documentation that:
If you want users to keep the app’s data stored on their device, make sure the new version uses the same bundle-identifier as the one it’s replacing, and tell users not to delete their old version before installing the new one. The new version will replace the old one and keep data stored on the device, if the bundle-identifiers match.
Now, assuming we keep the Bundle ID the same between the AppStore binary already installed and the enterprise binary signed with a different certificate... it should overwrite the same app on their phone rather than create a second app.
I contacted Apple support and they said "No, you will have 2 apps installed if you do not instruct the clients to uninstall their old one". Is this true?
EDIT: I'm leaving my original answer below for conversations sake as there is good dialogue below. As #mja noted when you initially create an app ID it is associated with one of a few available prefixes to your developer portal and that prefix may be used by iOS to associate & differentiate between apps.
EDIT2: When I go into my Enterprise Portal and try to create an app ID with an identical value to an existing app ID but with a different prefix it still blows up on me and says:
An App ID with Identifier 'com.mycompany.myapp' is not available.
Please enter a different string.
ORIGINAL Answer:
The latter part is incorrect - iOS devices use the Bundle Identifier to differentiate between apps. I can have 20 apps labeled "Cool App" on the same iOS device so long as they have unique bundle identifiers such as com.mycompany.coolapp.1 - com.mycompany.coolapp.20. Likewise (and I've done this accidentally) if I open two projects, both of which have bundle identifiers com.mycompany.myapp, and run one right after the other the last app to be run will be installed on the device whereas the previous app will be overwritten.
Regarding the app data sustaining itself I have not tested that though I'd be interested in what happens for you!
I have managed to achieve this, so that the 'enterprise' build of the app overwrites an 'app store' distributed version.
This does not use the exact same bundle ID but does achieve what OP asked in his original question.
How I did this was, in my enterprise account, create a wildcard bundle identifier with the first two parts the same as the bundle identifier for our production app, for example:
Production : com.xyz.abc
Enterprise : com.xyz.*
Using this wildcard bundle ID, the app can be distributed and will overwrite any versions installed via the app store (user data will still persist). The prefix does not seem to matter here.
One drawback of the wildcard bundle id is the fact that you cannot use APNS etc.
I'm in charge of developing and submitting the apps to the app store as the clients have sent us their apple logins. As far as developing the apps, that's been OK (I haven't submitted any yet) but in the next week I will need to submit at least three, all with different Apple IDs.
I've removed the Xcode password from the keychain and synced my certificates to the second Apple ID I have. Oh god, the mess it made with my keys, and profiles. When I did this with my own Apple Id (Xcode 3) I had to do the whole thing manually and could name keys, etc like I wanted. I entered the second Apple Id (Xcode 4) and now Xcode want's to manage everything for me. I like this but it created the keys and profiles with some stupid names. It makes it very difficult for me to sign apps with one or the other and also to backup one client's keys and not confuse them with mine. I'm afraid to enter the third Apple Id because I know the mess will be impossible to handle.
I'm open to tips, gotchas to look out for when working with multiple Apple IDs so that I can know "how it's done". And also, any other things along the way that I might encounter in the submission progress.
This is much easier if you use a separate user account on OS X for each client.
If you use one shared account for everything, then there shouldn't be any conflict if you only have one developer key and use separate bundle IDs for each application. The signing works backwards from the bundle ID - from the bundle ID it finds the correct provisioning profile, and from the provisioning profile it finds the correct distribution key.