I have been excited to try to add for the FIRST time a new App on iTunes Connect to TEST my GAMEKIT features.
I have read this technical note and I am getting confused because I had already a boundle id for my App that I created when I started developing it (that's my current bundle id with which I created the current provisioning and testing profiles: hello-*).
In order to use GameKit and InApp Purchase should I create a new Bundle Id?
I am confused because:
I don't know if the current Bundle Id is valid (in respect to the technical note linked above)
I don't know if hte Bundle Id influences the things that I can ADD in the App later (E.g. in App Purchase, GameKit, ...)
If I create a new App with a name (say: HelloApple) but with a bundle Id with wildcard (Say: hello-*) will I be able to add a new App with the same name but a different bundle Id in a later stage? This indeed before publishing ANY of the two Apps.
I don't fully understand why there is a choice between using or not using a wildcard; in other words, if a non wildcard bundle id is needed to use in App purchase and GameKit why should a developer want to use a wildcard App Id?
Any help will be appreciated, in particular I need to solve my first issue: which bundle Id should I use in ordert to use GameKit and InAppPurchase?
Before answering your questions some definitions:
Bundle ID: A reverse DNS string that precisely identifies a single app.
Bundle ID search string: it is used to match a set of bundle IDs, where each bundle ID identifies a single app. For example, if the bundle ID search string is com.mycompany.MyApp or a wildcard such as com.mycompany.*, then it will match the bundle ID com.mycompany.MyApp.
App ID: A string that identifies one or more apps from a single team. An App ID consists of a bundle ID search string preceded by the Team ID, a 10-character string generated by Apple to uniquely identify a team. In the technical note that you link it is ABCDE12345 and called the Bundle Seed ID.
(Development) Provisioning Profile: you use it to authorize your app to launch on devices and use certain store technologies when you are in development. It is comprised of: a single App ID, a set of devices, and a set of development certificates. The provisioning profiles are created in Member Center and you need them on your device to run your app. XCode can download provisioning profiles and install them onto devices.
Now I will answer to your bullets:
To use Game-Center (GameKit) and IAP you need an explicit App ID, that is and App ID with a bundle ID search string that has no *. A wild-card App ID is one in which the bundle ID search string that has a *, and is the one you have now.
What you create initially is an App ID with an associated Bundle ID. If it is explicit you can add Game-Center and IAP, if it is a wildcard App ID not... that's it.
You can not have two apps with different names but the same explicit App ID or Bundle ID. But you can have two apps with different names that do not use Game-Center or IAP with a unique App ID using a wildcard App ID.
You ask why the wildcard is useful... Well, I said that if you do not use Game-Center or IAP you can have two or more apps associated to an wildcard App ID. Then you can create a provisioning profile with this App ID and you only need to install this provisioning profile on your devices for all your apps. There is a default provisioning profile of this type called the Team Provisioning Profile which is valid for all your apps, but you could create more specific ones that are valid for a subset of all you apps.
This process is really useful for big teams. If you have a small team and few apps it is really confusing, but it helps to understand the reasoning behind it.
But there is more to say about all this. I recommend that you read the "App Distribution Guide" as I did recently. It is an extensive guide, but for the moment you only need to read sections of topic "Maintaining Your Signing Identities and Certificates" and "Maintaining Identifiers, Devices, and Profiles". The guide is very clear, full of screenshots and it will answer all your questions. Also you can go back to the guide down the road to quickly solve some issue (and you will have issues).
The first time that I created an App with Game-Center and IAP more than a year ago I looked up stackoverflow to answer all my questions. But I've been having issues when certificates expired, when I added new devices, etc, and every time I found and Ad-hoc solution after a lot of fiddling around and going back to stackoverflow. Don't get me wrong, there are great answers in stackoverflow but it is a much better strategy in my experience to read something longer that explains the big picture. App ID, Bundle ID's, Certificates, private keys, etc, is a messy subject, specially if you do not understand why it is built this way.
The bundle id is just an identifier for your app. It's mainly used to provide you with the certificates you need to use to sign your app before submitting to the App Store or to use it on development devices (e.g. for testing). The bundle id can be whatever you want. Apple recommends using the syntax com.yourcompany.yourapp to keep it consistent among apps you develop and avoid conflicts with other app's identifiers.
A wildcard can be used on all your apps, while a specific id can be used with one app only. I advice you to have an id for each of your app and only a wildcard for development (so you can run on your devices as many apps as you want without having to bother about the certificates until you decide to ship the app). You don't need to have access to all services (like Game Center or iCloud) on all your apps and therefore you better sign the single certificates just with the services your app needs.
What I think Apple wants is:
Create a different bundle ID for each app that uses in-App purchase/GameKit or both.
You can have same App-ID, and bundle ID for apps that do not use these.
If the bundleID you have for your app is not used for any other of your apps, you can use it.
Somebody more knowledgable, Please correct me if I am wrong.
Related
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.
These have baffled me ever since I signed up for developers account!
I Need to Know which one to use when I submit my app to the store?
Also in target > build settings > code signing > provisioning Profile are those values as shown in the image, which one do I pick to submit my app?
The com.domain.name or wild card?
And lastly what in the heckaroo is the com.domain.name used for and what's its importance?
Wild card ids are for development purposes only. Suppose you're working on an app, and don't know what its final name will be. You use the wildcard app id until you've named it.
Once you've named it, you do the com.domain.name one for submission.
These must be unique across the entire iOS ecosystem, which is why they work this way. Provided no two companies have the same name and product name, there will be no collisions.
The wildcard app ID (defined as *) can be used for any bundle identifier (the one you set in Xcode).
If you app conforms to the following (taken from the Registering an App ID page in the Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles section of the developer portal):
If you plan to incorporate app services such as Game Center, In-App Purchase, Data Protection, and iCloud, or want a provisioning profile unique to a single app, you must register an explicit App ID for your app.
Then you need to specify an explicit App ID - the com.domain.name you mentioned. This must match the bundle identifier of your app you set in Xcode.
The App ID is tied to the developer account (I believe it can be transferred) and this is unique per application. For example, say I set up an app with the App ID of com.stackoverflow.rich, you could then not use that App ID.
The App ID must be an explicit App ID when finally submitting the app to the App Store.
When releasing for the App Store you need to set your App Store Distribution profile under Provisioning Profile -> Release. You can probably just press delete/backspace on the Code Signing Identity -> Release, and then the Automatic setting will pick up the correct certificate.
Whenever you use the Archive command (under Product), the Release build configuration is always used (unless you change it under the Scheme settings).
If you want more info about this have a read of the App Distribution Guide.
There's also a Technical Q&A on this topic as well.
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.
A few quick questions on App ID's / Submission if you don't mind,
1: Can many App ID's can be added to the same provisioning/distribution profile? - so apps with different app ids can be distributed to the store with the same distribution profile?
2: Can you release an app to the store with a wildcard app id?
3: Does enabling services on an app id just allow you to use for example iCloud apis? If they weren't enabled would iCloud Apis (for example) just be ignored in the app?
4: When I was submitting my app last night, iTunes Connect needed a bundle id, which I set to say "com.John.myApp" -- when I was validating my app it said that my Apps bundle Id in xcode had to match "com.John.myApp" that I set in iTunes connect....
However in xcode my bundle id was something bigger like: "com.John.${PRODUCT_NAME:rfc1034identifier}"
so I just set it to "com.John.myApp" is that ok?
Thanks all,
Use a wildcard profile.
Yes.
It depends on the service, and some services won't work with a wildcard profile.
Yes. The default you replaced is just a default, a lot of people will have the app name in the bundle I'd but you don't have to.
I'm the Team Agent of an iOS Enterprise Program.
I'm trying to add a new app id (the new app-id is never used before in my account, but it's possible it is used by another enterprise account.
But, after submit, it says:
The bundle identifier you have specified is already in use. Please
select another.
Why it is happening and how can I solve this?
App IDs must be globally unique (not just unique within your iTunes account).
If you or somebody else has used that bundle ID on another iTunes account, Enterprise or regular, then it can't be re-used on any other account.
To avoid this, it's best to use wildcard ids for development (com.mycompany.*) and only create fully qualified ids when you are ready to deploy an app using a specific account.
Bundle Identifiers need to be unique across the board. If it's used in another business just change it. You can do this in the *-Info.plist file associated with your project. Look for the Bundle identifier field. It's reverse domain typically. So use something like com.yourcompany.appname If the bundle wasn't set by you but, someone on your project. You should be able to get access to a provisioning profile that supports that bundle identifier. Keep in my mind for all purposes that iOS will treated different bundle identifiers as different apps.
All app ID's seem to have to be unique among all IDs that Apple had in their entire worldwide iTunes database.
Has some other company registered the internet domain for mycompany.com, which you used as part of your com.mycompany.myapp app ID? Did you substitute your company's domain name for "mycompany". Or perhaps some other company is trying to (mis)use your company's registered domain name. Or does your company's corporate unbrella encompass more than one developer account (perhaps 1 enterprise enrollment and 1 company enrollment, or more)? The app ID could be registered in the other account.