How hard can it be to move our developer account to our new not-for-profit?

https://ar.al/2020/01/02/dear-apple-a-little-help-here-how-hard-can-it-be-to-move-our-developer-account-to-our-new-not-for-profit/

by Khaine • 7 years ago

51 19 7 years ago

ar.al

Legogris• 7 years ago

Previous discussion on more recent post on the same incident from same blog: https://ar.al/2020/01/13/apple-says-no-and-what-that-means-f...

mcny• 7 years ago

How does it normally work when one company acquires another? For example, I still see LinkedIn under LinkedIn Corporation, not Microsoft. Is that because technically LinkedIn is a separate company that Microsoft owns? Are there cases where Apple has changed publisher name for existing apps? Is there a standard operating procedure for this?

social_quotient• 7 years ago

Tons of paperwork must be submitted to the App Store, then you wait. Constantly getting the feeling this might not happen without abandoning your user base. The mental torture is what’s gets me... they should just have 1 or 100 clear steps and you know when it’s done, it’s done.

It’s frustrating to the point it’s a topic we raise with our customers during the initial requirements gathering phases of app development. I’ve seen our startup clients go through this all the way to one of our clients that’s a 30Bn publicly traded company.

rcruzeiro5• 7 years ago

I've done this procedure before and it was really simple. I just sent them some documents and had to consent to the transfer on a phone call.

The problem the people in the article are facing is that Apple does not allow the transfer of apps that include the iCloud entitlement. I do not know a single company who has worked around this restriction without having to republish the app on another account.

junipertea• 7 years ago

Why not give existing users a promo code to unlock the republished app? Like the games tend to do.

masukomi2• 7 years ago

because apple doesn't allow promo-codes for apps? because apple doesn't let developers know who their users are?

londons_explore• 7 years ago

Why do they need to change the company name on the app store at all?

Just leave the old one there? No harm to users, apple, or them.

rcruzeiro5• 7 years ago

That would work until Apple shuts down your developer account for belonging to a defunct company.

blackdogie• 7 years ago

I always thought you could transfer apps between developer accounts. Something along the lines of these steps https://support.appmachine.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000001228... Am I missing something ?

sschueller• 7 years ago

You can, I have done it before. I believe however you can not change the app id (com.mycoorp.etc).

coder1001• 7 years ago

"we cannot since Better uses iCloud and apps that use iCloud cannot be moved between developer accounts."

from the article.

rcruzeiro5• 7 years ago

It's actually on the post. If your app included the iCloud entitlement, it's not transferable.

zprunger• 7 years ago

why can they not transfer the app ownership from the old account to the new? Apple supports that IIRC

rcruzeiro5• 7 years ago

It's actually on the post. If your app included the iCloud entitlement, it's not transferable.

vasco• 7 years ago

Their products look like a regular 2 person for-profit product dev shop and they even mention the app pays for their rent. Weird definition of not-for-profit.

rcruzeiro5• 7 years ago

Nonprofits can still pay salary and they are likely employees of their own company.

marcus_holmes• 7 years ago

Yeah, the only restriction I'm aware of is that they can't pay dividends to shareholders.

masukomi2• 7 years ago

not-for-profit does not mean "everyone who works on this does so without pay" People have to pay for food and housing.

tzs• 7 years ago

We also tried setting up a new developer account for Small Technology Foundation and moving Better over to it but we cannot since Better uses iCloud and apps that use iCloud cannot be moved between developer accounts.

This reminds me of another Apple account problem, which also either involves iCloud or at least people became aware of because of iCloud.

Once upon a time, long before there were app developer accounts or iCloud accounts, there was the iTunes music store. A lot of people made iTunes accounts to buy music.

Then the app store was added, and those iTunes music store accounts also became your app store account.

Then iCloud was created. iCloud accounts were separate from iTunes account. So if you used iCloud and iTunes, you ended up with two accounts--one with an @mac.com or @icloud.com or @me.com ID for your iCloud stuff, and one with your regular non-Apple email address for your ID.

Later, they largely dropped the distinctions between iTunes and iCloud accounts. Someone new to Apple products only needed to make one account and they could use it for music, movies, apps (the traditional iTunes stuff) and for cloud storage, Apple email, keychain and calendar sync (the traditional cloud stuff).

For those of us whose iTunes account predated iCloud, we had to keep using both because there was no way to move your iTunes content to your iCloud account or vice versa.

Invariably at some point you'd be prompted for your account credentials and would provide the "wrong" account (it is not always clear why you are being asked for credentials), and end up with some apps on your iCloud account and some on your iTunes account, and so you would then need to switch between the accounts when you wanted to do updates for everything.

For years people have asked for some way to merge their pre-iCloud iTunes account and their iCloud account, and the answer has always been that you cannot do this.

How hard can it be to move our developer account to our new not-for-profit?

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