I'm not sure what SE site to ask this on, but I figure this is something somebody in the SE community has the answer. Feel free to move this question if this is the wrong place.
Recently I launched the game Vainglory on my iPhone for the first time in a while. The first thing I noticed was the pop-up saying that the app may slow down my phone (meaning it doesn't have a 64-bit executable, something which a number of apps have). When I got in the game the main menu showed a screen saying I need to update the app, which struck me as odd since I have auto update turned on. When I tapped the "update" button in the app it took me to the App Store, not to update the app but to download a different app, also named Vainglory, but was clearly an updated version of the game.
Somewhere under the covers this is probably the equivalent of having an app on the store with the bundle identifier com.companyname.app1 and then launching another one with the identifier com.companyname.app2.
But as an app developer with a few entries on the store what I don't understand is what technical or business reason would drive a company to do this, at least with free apps (it might make sense if you made the "sequel" to an app and wanted people to pay again).
I thought there might be some sort of weird issue going on, but then Apple launched a new version of their Remote app to control the Apple TV. They had a version out for several years that controlled Apple TV 3 units but this version now controls both Apple TV 4 and Apple TV 3 units. What I don't get is why they didn't just update the old Remote app.
I thought maybe there was an issue with company ownership (i.e., Skype puts out their Skype app and then they get bought by Microsoft so now the Skype app needs to look like it comes from Microsoft) but there's a process Apple has to transfer apps between companies. Plus Apple themselves wouldn't need to do this for their Remote app.
What technical or business reason would a company app have to move a free app from one "app" identifier to another?
Something to add - I've done Android development and there is one "screw it up permanently" scenario there: if you lose the Keystore file to sign the app with or lose the password you can't ever update the app again on Google Play. You'd need to submit a different app with a different identifier. And you can't update the old app to send people a message to go to the new app either.
Also Google has (or had) a rule that a free App can't change to a paid app, so that might be another reason to submit a new app on Google Play.
But neither of those are occurring here for the Vainglory or Remote apps, and app signing is handled differently in the Apple world (so long as someone with access to the developer account can get a certificate the app can be re-signed and re-uploaded).
