2 weeks ago I created a new app on iTunes Connect. Today I notice that another app has been approved with the exact same name. I thought when you set up an app it reserves the name? If not how can you promote an app before release without fear that somebody will pinch the name? Any tips?
trademark it and then defend in court actively. Really it is hard to protect anything. There are many apps in the store with the same name. Apple doesn't act an adjudicator of this otherwise trolls might just set up 100s of app names in itunes and try to sell them all. Also if they had been using that name in advertising outside of itunes before you put yours into itunes they are also probably legally entitled to it because they had the first active use of it.
Are you sure the name is exactly the same? Even an extra space, dash, dot, etc. difference could make that possible...
I've heard it's possible as each language of the app can have one instance of the same name. So English US is different from international English.
The names are 100% unique Unicode strings. However, there are multiple Unicode character codes for some characters that appear identical. There are (or were) several games named "Chess", but they each had unique Unicode encodings due to multiple character codes for "C" (like Cyrillic). Apple does not normally police these differences. It's up to you as the developer to report any perceived infringement.
if you used a different character code wouldn't you not sure up in search because nobody would search for that character?
