If you already have your AppMachine app in the app stores, you can republish your app via the new publishing flow.
One of the most important reasons why you switch over are these:
- if your classic app was published for the last time 6 months or longer ago doesn't look good on phones with larger screens. Your customers will see a black banner at the bottom of their screen.
- on Android your customers might experience app crashes on newer phones.
Switching over will only take you 5-10 minutes once.
Not all apps can be published with the new publishing at this time, this is explained in this article.
This article explains:
- 1. Difference between Classic and New publishing
- 2. One time setup for Apple App Store
- 3. One time setup for Google Play Store
- 4. Steps to take every time you want to do a Store update
- 5. Steps to take every time you want to do a Store update
- 6. FAQ
1. Difference between Classic and New publishing
A. New mobile app with Flutter technology
The classic AppMachine apps were based on Xamarin technology. The technology of your mobile app has been completely rebuilt using Flutter technology.
This article describes the advantages that switching to Flutter offers you.
With this new technological base AppMachine will start offering new blocks and new functionality in the months to come.
B. New publishing flow Apple App Store
The Apple App Store publishing flow now uses Apple App Store Connect APIs which makes your life and our life easier.
It means that:
- If Apple changes its interface, the publishing will still work.
- The status of your app within AppMachine is updated automatically based on the status in the App Store Connect.
- We have added several checks to make sure the app fits the technical and store requirements from Apple.
- If there are issues with uploading your app, the screens in AppMachine will show you a much more specific description of what the problem is so that you can fix the issue(s) yourself, instead of needing to contact the AppMachine support team.
- Classic publishing used the Apple's XML Feed update mechanism. Apple has deprecated this functionality in November 2022. That means that starting November 1st, 2022 classic publishing of your app via Store updates is not possible anymore.
C. New publishing flow Google Play Store
The new publish flow for Google Play has changed a little and requires 5 minutes of your time for every store update which you do:
- AppMachine will create the AAB file, but you will need to upload the app yourself in the Google Play console. This article describes how you can upload a file yourself. This won't take longer than a few minutes.
- The management of the Google Play Store information will be done solely in the Google Play Console. If you want to change screenshots or description etc. you can go to the https://play.google.com/console and make your changes without needing to trigger a store update in the AppMachine platform.
2. One time setup for Apple App Store
The Classic flow used your login credentials to login to Apple App Store Connect. The new publish flow requires you to create and upload an API key and P8 file once, which will be used by the publishing machines to upload your app.
This will take you approximately 5 minutes to setup.
- Open the new publish dashboard
- Click Setup App Store Connect API key
- Fill in the details in this screen.
3. One time setup for Google Play Store
- Open the new publish dashboard
- Click "Setup Play Store"
- AppMachine will automatically create an app link based on the keys we already have on file for you.
- Click the "Close" button to finish the setup.
You upload an update to Google Read more...
4. Steps to take when you want to trigger a Store update
Whenever you want to publish a new version of your app, store update, or content update, you click the blue "Publish" button in the top right corner of the new publish dashboard.
The system will detect automatically based on the changes you made if a Store update is required or if a content update will suffice.
- Store updates: Will take approximately 1-3 days for the App platforms to review and get approved
For Apple, the app upload will be taken care of by AppMachine
For Google Play, AppMachine will create the AAB file for you within 1-3 hours, you will need to upload the app to the Google Play store yourself. More information is available via this article. - Content updates: Will be available within 5 minutes. Whenever a user opens his app on his device, the content update will be downloaded automatically.
You can check the app version on a phone by clicking the User profile icon in the top right corner. In the menu that pops up at the bottom of the screen you can see "About this app (x.x.00)"
That should show the last published content update version for that platform.
5. Steps to take every time you want to do a Store update
If you run into any issues:
- We want you to know that our whole team is available for you to fix any problems which might arise as soon as possible.
- For us to be able to help you as quickly as possible we ask you to
- Use the articles in this section of our Help center:
- Should you not understand something, email [email protected] immediately with the words “Publish beta” in the title and a detailed description of the issue.
- Please always include your app number and screenshots to explain the issue to us.
- Use the articles in this section of our Help center:
6. FAQ
- Do all apps that have not been published with V2 / Flutter require a republish. And what will the experience be for our users?
>> Answer : Yes, all apps will require a store update of your app.
This will be a new version/update of your existing app.
Your customers won't need to download "a new app", this will just be a regular update of the app for them. - Is the new flutter / V2 optimized for any white label?
>> Answer: Yes! The new Flutter supports white labelling, just like you are used to now.