I am about to upload my Iphone application to the apple store, however I intend to release more versions in the near future. Is there anyway to make my application auto update once I upload a new version to the apple store?. That is as I am about to upload version 1.0, once i upload version 1.x, can the user be notified of this or can the application be auto-updated?. Can anyone point me in the right direction?. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
-Oscar
This is functionality provided by the app store. When you submit new versions, after apple has approved them, they will become available through the app store as updates to users that already have the app installed.
No, this functionality is not available on the iPhone. The AppStore provides updates through the store only, and Cydia provides updates through Cydia only.
The direction i've seen many applications take is at start, check an XML file that you host for information on newer versions, and typically display a message to the user (preferably in a news ticker or non-obstructive manor) about a new version being released, and why they should upgrade.
User will see new available updates to apps he owns in iTunes. User can then choose to get the update.
I'm not sure about updates via iPhone but if you pay for data downloads you would prefer to download apps/updates over iTunes on your Mac and then sync to iPhone. It's cheaper that way.
You can't auto-update, however as far as I'm aware nothing prevents you from notifying the user that a new version is available, within your app. For example you could contact a web server to find out what the latest version is, and compare that to a build number in your app bundle, then display an appropriate alert/notification to the user. Or, you could get fancy and use the 3.0 push notifications for this.
In theory the appstore app/itunes will do this anyway, but it's clear that a lot of users don't see that.
Another thing you can do using the method I outlined (that the app store won't do) is tell the users that a new version is available, what it does, and that it's waiting for apple.
Even simpler is just to embed an 'announcements' channel in your app somewhere. That lets you talk to your users without waiting for apple - you can tell them there is a new version on the way, etc. I do this with an app I'm beta testing - a button on the main screen shows announcements, which I pull from my server.
Maybe if enough app developers did this, apple would start turning the approvals around quicker. Or change the legalese to prevent it [assuming it doesn't already] :-)
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2221436/can-i-force-an-iphone-user-to-upgrade-an-application
Same question. Different Discussion.
My guess is automatic version updating is intentionally left out. Think about it: what kind of strain will they have on their server if everyone on the planet with an iPhone downloaded An update to Fruit Ninja at the same time? I think their passive notification to the users via the red circle and white number allows them to spread out/stagger the update downloads and reduce server load.