Publishing similar apps in AppStore

Question

Hello guys,

I have some questions that I think some one here can help me ... I have published 5 apps in AppStore that brings news to the users, for different countries. One app per country, because no one want's to read the news of other countrys. Now, I have submitted 3 more apps to publish and Apple reject it, because they say that I need to use "In App Purchase" because the apps are similar ...

I have seen many similar apps published by the same user .. so, my question is, how can I publish many similar apps without "In App Purchase"?

I have used the same "bundle Id" for all of my apps .. Is it wrong? I need the create one bundle Id per app to get this work and the ok by Apple?

Thanks you very much and sorry for my limited english!!

Answer 1

At least you need to create unique bundle ID's for each application you distribute through the App Store.

It is possible that Apple still determines that the apps are identical even if they use different bundle ID's. In that case you might be able to get them approved by limiting the distribution countries in the store setup.

Answer 2

Maybe you should follow Apple's advice. I know plenty of people who like to keep informed about news of other countries. Such as people who have migrated and people who are on holiday? Something to consider maybe.

Answer 3

Thanks you all for the answers.

What Luke say's is reasonable but I want to publish separated apps because I have an analytic service in my apps and I have detected that, from a total of 3000 downloads, there is no one Device ID who has downloaded two apps. This is the reason to me, to try to publish separated applications.

I appreciate so much to all for your answers and I'll keep watching the post in case someone says something else .. Thank you very much!

P.D: It is more or less understood my English? =)

Answer 4

Since Apple released the App Store Review Guidelines, one of them is that developers should not "spam" the app store with multiple versions of the same app with minor changes.

What Apple wants from you right now is to merge all your apps into one. Put all the news sources in one app, and let the user decide which to read. You can write code to disable and/or hide other news sources that the user doesn't want to see.

Or, as Apple said, if you want to charge for each individual news source, then use In-App purchase to control access to each news source.

If you are charging, I won't get into the legality of charging people to read news that you don't own - I'm sure you've considered that.

Source: App Store Review Guidelines

2.20 Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program