Bundle ID change

Question

benmartin88 OP

Created Aug ’23

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Hi,

We are fairly new to the app development process with Apple. We have our existing release of the app live and now are ready to push our first update.

We have our app in both the Apple store and Google Play store.

It would seem that our initial release resulted in different bundle IDs for Apple and Google, where Google does not support starting with a number. So we have these:

Apple - com.name.client Google - com.app_name.client.twa

I already know from speaking to google that we cannot change this. Is this the same for Apple?

The issue we have, is that we have a single code base and use capacitorJS. As such our code base share the same configuration for the bundle ID.

What would be the suggested route here?

Whilst we could change the capacitor.config.js on each build, this feels cumbersome and could introduce the risk of error down the line.

If the bundle ID cannot be changed the for existing app in the store, and we instead use a new universal name, what happens? Do our users need to uninstall the existing app and then go and find the new one?

Apologies for the rather basic question, but I am unsure how best to proceed here.

Thanks

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Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Aug ’23

Is this the same for Apple?

Yes. The bundle ID is the primary way that Apple platforms identify an app. If you change the bundle ID then, by definition, it’s a different app.

If the bundle ID cannot be changed the for existing app in the store, and we instead use a new universal name, what happens?

From an Apple perspective you’ve created an entirely different app. There’s no way to automatically migrate users to your new app, although you can do things to help with the migration.

Personally I don’t think fixing this is worth that hassle, and I’d look at ways to adjust your tooling to deal with this disparity. Then again, I’m not an expert on the third-party tools you’re using, so maybe that’s harder than it seems.

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