I released Ball Frenzy for iPhone/iPad on 7 April 2011 and on 11 April another developer released game with identical name. Surely this should not be possible?
I just checked it out, and you are right there are two games with the same name, but this is clearly not ok!You should contact apple, and see what is going on!And please post their answer here, i'm curious what they say!Cheers!
This happens due to the fact that Unicode has multiple representations of some characters which are (or at least appear) identical. The iTunesConnect name check is based on the strings being identical, so names that look the same can slide by. The developer of Color Splash had the same thing happen recently. The offending app was named with a Cyrillic "C" as I recall. Contact Apple and they should be able to help out.
Interesting, but if the offending app used a Cyrillic "C" will the offending app name show up when searched for? Since the user will most likely be typing in a non-Cyrillic "C".
Not sure about that as far as searching for the actual name goes, but that can often be worked around with keywords. In the case of Color Splash, both apps showed up with a search for "Color Splash"
I have contacted Apple and I was shocked to see how quick they acted on this. I have already had an email from the other developer saying he will change the name of his game. I am sure Apple will be pleased he is happy to do this
great news, thanks for the update. Were they released very close together in time? Could be a weird coincidence
So isn't it possible that they were both submitted at the same time and iTC didn't have the name in the database yet? or does it also check against apps pending approval..
Well I was under the impression the check is made when you first add a new game/app in Itunes Connect and that if another game has already been added to Itunes Connect by another developer (whether or not it has been approved yet) ,then this name would no longer be available. Perhaps I have got this wrong?
That is in fact what happens. As soon as you register an app name on iTunes Connect, it is unavailable for other developers. So this case may either be some special character use as mentioned or a weird case falling through the cracks of that check
The reason there are two apps with the same name is that Apple only check for identical names across the same locale. So if I'm a developer in the UK, I can create an app with the same name as one created with a US developer account, as long as no one has registered that name in the UK. Sounds crazy, but we've been bitten before with this! Faceblocks: http://itunes.apple.com/app/faceblocks/id400051176?mt=8
