CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidiosiphonereactjsfirebase
Sukhjinder Singh
Sukhjinder Singh

Reputation: 1825

Does iOS has In App updates like feature as of Android?

I have developed a Mobile App for both Android and iOS. Now every week we have 2 updates to be released. Most of the times Android and iOS users stops auto updates for the apps. But if there are critical updates or bug fixes or new features then we must ask user to update the app for better usability. For this I have found Android has In App Updates API. It says and I quote

Keeping your app up-to-date on your users’ devices enables them to try new features, as well as benefit from performance improvements and bug fixes. Although some users enable background updates when their device is connected to an unmetered connection, other users may need to be reminded to update. In-app updates is a Play Core library feature that introduces a new request flow to prompt active users to update your app.

However I am not able to find same kind of or similar like feature for iOS. I am not sure if Push Notification can do the same or not. Please advise.

Upvotes: 21

Views: 16972

Answers (2)

Maulik
Maulik

Reputation: 19418

No, App can not be updated or downloaded without the user's settings for Auto Updates.

But you can try an alternative way. Like when the app opens or comes to the foreground, call an API/web service to check is there any critical update released based on the current version of the app? Based on YES/NO response, show an alert to users that new update is available and on OK click, take them to the Apple stores.

Upvotes: 11

Michael Dougan
Michael Dougan

Reputation: 1698

No, iOS does not have the auto update feature that Android has. Push notification would not work well for this, as 1) the user may disallow push notifications, and 2) the Push would not know what version the user is currently using.

If your app calls a backend web API or web service, then it is pretty simple for the app to call a method, say, getVersion() in the web service. The web service reads the current version as set in a config file and returns it to the app. It could also return a flag that says Mandatory = either Y or N.

In your app, you call the getVersion() method every time on start up. If the app's version number is less than the version returned in getVersion(), then you check to see if the mandatory flag is set to 'Y'. If so, you show a dialog that says a mandatory update is required before you can use the app, would you like to install this now? If yes, you navigate them to the page in the iTunes app store, and exit the app. If no, you exit the app. They will get the same message every time they try to run the app until they update it.

If the mandatory flag is set to 'N', you show a dialog saying that an updated version is available, would you like to install it now? If yes, then navigate them to the page in the iTunes app store, and exit the app. If no, you allow the app to open and continue. However, the user will again be prompted every time the app opens until they update.

You can make the getVersion() method work for both iOS and Android, if you pass the platform to the method getVersion(String platform), and then read the config file for android_version or ios_version (as the version numbers may differ between platforms) depending on what was passed in the platform parameter.

Upvotes: 6

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