Never change the name of your apps!

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by Syndicated Puzzles, Jan 22, 2012.

  1. Syndicated Puzzles

    Syndicated Puzzles Well-Known Member

    #1 Syndicated Puzzles, Jan 22, 2012
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2012
    We have had two horrific experiences the two times we had to change the name of our apps. Both times most users weren't able to update the new version because of the new name. Right away the users point the finger at the developer even though we don't even have a clue what the issue is and 30+ angry (pissed off) users.

    Login Hd was in the top 5 in utilities (OSX) and with the name change to Lock Your Screen we ended up in 15 th spot and a load of one star reviews.

    Our app Times Zones that went through the same change still has users that are having unexplainable issues. We are sure it is a trickle down affect from the name change.

    Does anyone have a solution to get out of this mess ?

    We contacted Apple on the first app but Apple did nothing to help so we simply updated again using the new name and the downloads seem to work better.

    Some experiences and advice on this issue would be amazing.
     
  2. mobile1up

    mobile1up Well-Known Member

    Nov 6, 2008
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    Technical Director
    Munich, Germany
    the applications should be tied to your application identifier - not the name.

    so if you simply changed the name, you should be good. if you went through the process of registering a new application name with an identifier.. then they would technically be different products from apple's point of view. you really should have just:

    - updated the application icon name
    - updated the title/application name in itunesconnect

    and you should be fine.
     
  3. Moonjump

    Moonjump Well-Known Member

    May 17, 2010
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    Game designer
    Lincoln, UK
    I changed the name of my game using the method mobile1up mentions and found it a very positive experience.

    TiltStorm was the original name of my game. People didn't like the tilt controls, so I added touch control options which players did like, but still most were put off trying it because of the name suggested tilt controls. Six months after release I changed the name to ShootStorm. That gave a good boost to sales and I sold more in that month than in the first 2 months of the initial launch.
     
  4. Syndicated Puzzles

    Syndicated Puzzles Well-Known Member

    Aaron, we did exactly what you are suggesting. We have found a lot of other devs talking about the same issue. ( hash-mismatch error) . In the forums it seems that X- code had the biggest issues when people tried to update.

    My suspicion is it is an OSX issue only when you change an apps name.
     

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