Hi!
We are running a service that consists of both web, iOS & android-apps. On iOS, we release to a few different markets using different bundleid's. The codebase for these apps is the same, but we create different binaries for each market. To make things even more complicated, these apps use auto-renewable IAP subscriptions. We have a backend that keeps track of all subscriptions, and validate the receipts against apple, so that our entire ecosystem of web & apps will know what users have an active subscription, or not.
We are currently in the process of creating a brand new iOS-app from scratch, that will look & feel quite different from the old one. This time around we thought it would be nice to have one single binary / bundleid for all markets. The question is how we release this app with as little loss of revenue as possible.
Option 1
- Release the new app with a new bundleid.
- Remove the old app's IAP-products from sale, and let them expire.
- Ask the users to download the new app, and ask those who had a subscription to re-subscribe in the new app.
Option 2
- Release the new app with the same bundleid as the biggest market of the old app.
- Users of this market will auto-upgrade to the new app, and subscriptions will continue as if nothing has happened.
- Ask users in the smaller markets to re-download and re-subscribe.
Option 3
- Keep using separate binaries for each market, and reuse all bundleid's.
- All users will auto-upgrade.
Our CEO prefers option 3, because that will in theory save some money. I as a developer prefer option 1, because the new app will likely have bugs, and I feel it is good that the users can choose to make the switch whenever they want.
Does anyone here have experience regarding similar issues? How have you handled releasing brand new apps that replace old ones? Does Apple have anything to say regarding this? Are they likely to reject the new app if we reuse bundleid's? Is there any other drawback from using separate bundleid's then maintenance, maybe regarding ASO? Is it for example less likely to become a featured app, because the number of downloads is spread across several apps? Is it concidered "bad practice" to use separate bundleid's?