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this is my first ios app. am working on a version 1 that i'm planning on giving to few of my customers. customers will get it from app store. in future, if i have new version that i'd like to notify current users, is there anything that I have to put in version 1?

thanks.

user3282227
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  • Do you want the notification to appear within your app? This is a non-standard behavior, so you will need to create most everything associated with it. If you just want the standard update notification via the app store, I don't believe there is anything needed within the app. – mbmcavoy Feb 26 '14 at 22:40

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Yes, you will need to put something in version 1 in order to do this if you want some kind of notification in the app itself. You can go about it a few different routes depending on how complex you want it to be:

  • You could add push notifications to your app, so that you can send a push notification to your users letting them know an upgrade is available. You would probably only want to do this if you used the push notifications for other purposes as well, as users probably wouldn't want to allow push notifications for an app to only inform them of app updates.

  • You could have your app check with your server upon app launch to see if there's an update available. You could simply have a file on your server that the app checks which can contain the version number of the most up to date app you have available. If the server reports a newer version than the version reported by the app, it can display a message, which could also be contained on your server to be configurable. This would be pretty simple to implement, and could possibly contain other configuration information for your app. You could also choose when to show the prompt, in case you don't want to bug users for some updates but do for others. This would be good to do if you might release an update that requires users upgrade in order to continue to have it work with a backend server.

  • You can also get your app to check directly with Apple to see if a newer version of the app is available on the app store. You should be able to find a resource that will instruct you how to do this. Going this route, as soon as an update is available it will start bugging users to upgrade, so you may not want to do this if you only want to push some updates on your users but not others.

  • You can do nothing. On iOS 7 by default app updates get automatically installed, and even if they have that disabled, the user can see what app updates are available in their app store app. This is what most apps do, aka they don't bug the user every time an update is available. And if somebody isn't updating their apps anyway, your prompt won't necessarily encourage them to do it either.

Gavin
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It's similar to the message appearing in Chrome when a new version is available - something like "Chrome has just got better".

Presuming that you have a server side counterpart, my approach would be the following:

  1. store the latest version number of your app somewhere on the server (database, configuration file, etc)
  2. implement an API at server side that, upon an app version provided as parameter, returns true if an update is available
  3. in your app, read the current app version (see this SO answer)
  4. call the remote API mentioned in (2), and act accordingly if the return value is true

Note however that appstore notifies the user when an update is available - but that doesn't happen in-app

Community
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Antonio
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Incrementing the app version is enough for App Store notification as explained in iPhone app Update Vs new version

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gabber
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  • Thanks for you replies. Publishing next version that is using same "application Id" or something as earlier version with higher "version" tag sounds more clean. Other option is to also poll the server and do a small non-annoying badge like thing on app if a new version is in place. Another question. Not sure if I should start this as new topic. Would appstore reject if the app asks user to enter delivery address, phone number in the app. would doing be violating some agreement? – user3282227 Feb 27 '14 at 18:51
  • I can't really answer that for sure. it seems to me that it is ok, as there are all kinds of transporting apps (getTaxi / Uber) that know your home address, phone number and credit card number. but I suggest you open a new SO question for this one. – gabber Mar 02 '14 at 13:39