Is it possible to notify users of your app about a replacement app from a different developer account?

Question

Created Oct ’20

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We have an iOS app that was developed for us by a vendor but the contract has now concluded. The vendor is not coopoerative in providing us the distribution profile or relevant certificates so that we may update the app and republish. Thus, we will have to develop and publish a similar but completely separate app for our users to replace the existing app.

It should be noted that the app was published from our corporate apple dev account but all the source code etc was provided by the original vendor.

We are wondering if it is possible for us to notify the users of our existing app that we are taking down this app and will be publishing a new free app that will be available via the App Store?

So far we have not been able to find any answer(s) from Apple Support.

Please and thanks in advance!
Ken

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Answer 1

Engineer OP

Apple

Oct ’20

To send a push notification to an app, you need either an APNs certificate which was created for that app, or you need the p8 authentication signing key to create a valid JWT token that can send push notifications to the app.

If you have access to the account which the app profile and certificates were created, you should be able to create the necessary certificates and keys to send a notification.

Of course, this would work if and only if the existing app has already been registered to receive push notifications, and you have access to the existing push tokens for your users.

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Answer 2

kevinfromleverkusen OP

Oct ’20

It should be noted that the app was published from our corporate apple dev account but all the source code etc was provided by the original vendor.

Uhm, I may be missing something maybe, but this should mean that you can simply generate new profiles and certificates and replace the old App with a new one, which everybody will simply get per App Store update like normal.
No need for any push notifications.

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