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Apple iMessage Sticker Update Hell!
Why is it so hard to upgrade a sticker app that has literally no code?
In December 2019 I wrote an article about Unnecessary Forced “App” Updates. TLDR — around this time, Apple started deleting apps which didn’t conform to App Store Review Guidelines, in other words apps that hadn’t been recently updated.
I don’t have a problem with this policy but I do have a big problem with things changing outside my control and making the upgrade process a nightmare.
There are normally two things that go wrong. The first is the arcane code signing process. My initial article dealt extensively with this issue so I wont repeat the solution here.
Up until last month, code signing was my biggest issue and using the techniques described, updating could be done in a few hours. The most time consuming issues dealt with updating provisioning profiles and creating new privacy policy web pages.
The new issues revolve around changes that Apple have made to Xcode and the App Store Connect upload process. This is a soul destroying journey through Apple Developer Forums and StackOverflow questions, poorly signposted by cryptic error messages which seldom relate to the actual problem.
To be clear, these sticker packs contain no code. They are a collection of images with some associated meta data. This is the simplest upgrade use case. I don’t understand why the entire process can’t be largely automated.
Once you get your sticker app to compile, you can archive it, which is the first step in uploading your build to Apple so that they can review it and return your “upgraded” app to the App Store…
