I want to know if there's any trouble in creating a version control on my iOS app, because I'm going to make some huge upgrades in my webservices code and don't want that any user try to access the old version and the app crashes or don't work properly.
My idea is to create a service that capture the app version and than, if its an old version, the user can't access the app until the new version is installed.
I know that some android apps do this, but I didn't find any iOS app with this control.
Thanks!
Your app has a version, and you're writing the web service, so I don't see why you couldn't have your web service check the version and respond with a message that tells the app to show a message asking the user to upgrade.
That said, it would be much, much nicer for your users if you design the web service so that it detects the app version and then provides appropriate functionality for whichever version the user has. You might not want to continue support for the older version forever, but your users would probably appreciate having some time to upgrade when they choose to rather than when your app forces them to.
Related
I want all users off my app to stay above a minimum threshold version. Is there a way I can configure it either in the code or app store that invalidates the users on a certain version and redirects them to the app store?
I assume you have already an application that in the production and installed to devices.
In this case, unfortunately you can't put version limit on them. The only way is, deprecating v1 APIs and creating v2 APIs. The older version app owners will get a warning (If you well made the error handling.).
Otherwise, you can add a new feature like checking the version on the startup of the application. And If it is older, you can show a message like "Please update the application." and put a button that redirects to the AppStore.
(The image is from a Medium blog post named "Mandatory Update for your apps".
I don't recommend forcibly redirecting users to AppStore. It is not a great UX practice. You can block the screen of the application with the warning but at least leave the basic functionalities open.
We have a browser application and this application is using by different clients. Each client is using separate database and service. Regularly(quarterly) we are releasing the upgrade with enhanced features. But some of the clients may not upgrade to the latest. So different clients are using different versions of our product. There is no issue with this because each clients are using their own Database and service. Recently we build up a iOS app for the same application. In app store we can upload only the latest version of our app, how the clients in lower version can install respective version of their app? Latest version app may not work with lower version of service and Database
Different clients needs to install different versions of same app from app store.
In App Store Connect (where you manage your apps in the App Store), you can choose which versions you want to remain in the App Store after you release a new version. The purpose of this is to allow an older version to be downloaded in case the user have an older device or iOS version that don't support the new app version. - So I guess this feature is not really helping in your case.
I would suggest you make the same version for everyone, and then within the App (I assume your clients have a login) based on their user selects what you want to present them. - Connecting to their old database and deactivating the new features as an example. This will also give you the opportunity to showcase that there is new features which they may want to opt-in on.
You can release a completely new app for each version. Ex. YourApp 1.0, YourApp 2.0 (This is not uncommon, but it's usually more if the same app is radically changed/improved, and you want the old version to remain for some time until you retire it completely).
Hope this clarifies a bit :)
Some new users may not know how to use the app store for updating apps. Is there a way from within the app I can provide a button that triggers updating the app ?
No, there is no built in way to do this.
If you have a way of detecting when a newer version is out (e.g. your server reports the version number of the latest version), then you could just direct users to your app's App Store page when they have an old version — just use -[UIApplication openURL:] to open your app's App Store URL, and it'll transfer them to the App Store app.
But as Losiowaty's comment mentions, this is not a thing you should worry about. Most people have automatic app updates turned on. This really is a non-issue.
I'm building an in-house app that is distributed via the AirWatch app catalog. The app always runs with Guided Access enabled and all devices running it are managed by AirWatch. My questions are regarding auto-update:
Is there a way that AirWatch can force the update immediately or as soon as the device comes back online, without asking for the user's input? If so, how does the app being open affect this behavior? How does guided access being enabled affect this behavior?
Is there a link from AirWatch, perhaps an itms-services:// link, that the app can call to install the new version if a web service had indicated that it's no longer the latest version? If so, how does Guided Access being enabled affect this behavior?
Is there any other good model for remotely updating the app that will spread the update as quickly as possible and under the above conditions? The solution can be using MDM or a custom web service or both combined.
Thanks a lot for your help!!
If your devices are running iOS7 and you have your app Deployment settings set to "Auto" (as opposed to "On-Demand") the device will automatically take the update once it processes the APNs notification to do so. If the device is locked/offline it will typically check for outstanding APNs messages within a minute or so of being unlocked or coming back online.
What I don't know is since your app is in guided access mode if you're receiving a pop-up to install the new version. I've seen previously where if the app that requires an update is open iOS will prompt. What we have done to battle this is embed a check in the app that phones home to see if the app is current. If the app is NOT current the user can't do anything until they update their app.
Regarding a direct-link to the App Catalog to update the app that might get tricky with guided access enabled. Before you even try to tackle that issue understand that the app catalog webclip URL contains the UDID of the device as of AW7.1 (I think). Since the UDID is no longer programmatically accessible code-side AirWatch allows you to push the UDID upon app installation in the Deployment/Application Configuration section. You can embed {DeviceUid} into the key share on the device which will make it accessible for that applciation, hence allowing you to create the appropriate App Store URL within your app.
Good luck
honestly I didn't work with AirWatch. But I don't think that Apple provides a way for automatic update of ad-hoc or enterprise apps.
Well, I can describe a solution for an enterprise app I developed last year. Hope it will help you somehow.
First of all, I made it as a part of our secure website. (a little test flight)
Here's how app update works
When the app launches it sends special request to a server asking if
it is outdated and a new app version is available. (+ servers sends
url for new version installation (with itms-services://))
Then
if update is required, app fires alert with description of new
version, if user taps update, the app opens Safari where the user
is able to install a new version.
We made to different kinds of alert, optional (minor version change) and compulsory(major version change). With later variant user is unable to get rid of alert view, so he has to update the app.
You can update your internal app through the AirWatch Console and applications versioning.
I never used it but I imagine that at the end of the new version process, there is a way to push the updated app to the related devices. If the Push Mode is set to Auto, the user won't have to do anything and the app should be updated. If it is On Demand, the use will have to initiate the process from the App Catalog. From for the latest option, you have the solution to send a notification to the user.
It is also possible to retire or inactivate older versions to only keep the newest one.
If you have access to AirWatch Online Documentation, I recommend you the page Using Add Version for Applications. If you don't, contact your administrator and ask for all the pages located in Mobile Application Management -> Internal Applications and the page Using Add Version for Applications.
You should try it with a single device though ;)
I have an question regarding app distribution system via app store.
I have an app on app store which interacts with a different client-servers at various locations. It functions like version 1.0 of iphone app will be able to properly interact with version 1.0 of the client-server. Now the problem is few of my clients are late/reluctant in upgrading their server to which the iphone users connect. Once I release an update(say 2.0) for my iphone app there are few client-server which are still running 1.0 version. And if the end users of these clients installs the update (2.0) for his iphone app (unknowingly, the client-server which he is gonna connect to is still on 1.0), he makes his app unusable.
how to deal with these types of scenarios?
Can I develop my new updates to the application which interacts with the server before upgrading themselves OR can I develop something which automatically rolls back the update if server version mismatches?
Kindly suggest how to deal with this problem!
Would extremely grateful for your suggestions.
Many thanks,
Manu
You can't do either things that you mentioned. The app store guidelines forbid removing functionality (aka compatibility with 1.0) from the app, however they are fairly lenient about this. Regardless, it's a bad user experience to not support recent older versions of your client/server software.
Most people will place a big warning at the beginning of their "What's new" text, like "WARNING: This version does not work with server app version 1.0." It's somewhat effective if the person bothers to read that, however it's a bit crude.
In any case, version 2 of the app should not simply crash - you should provide feedback via a UIAlertView if their server version is not compatible with the client.
Furthermore, your server version 2 should continue to send responses that version 1 can parse, or send back an error message that you display to the user via a UIAlertView that tells them that they need to update the app.