We managed to get one of our applications approved and it's now live.  What happens when we find bugs in the profile space and need to make changes? 

1.  Do these changes need to get approved as well? 

2. If so, while the changes are being approved, will the old profile code still be running?

3.  Is there any chance that changing this code will cause our app to get suspended?  If so, why/when?

Many thanks for your help! 

I second this question. I'm just getting ready for the second iteration of my app, with a few more features. 

 Good questions.  The goddess should be in today, but pretty much everyone else is in Seattle.  

I'll see if I can get some answers, but being the weekend and with devJam, it might not happen. :) 

 I'm gonna take a quick stab at these, but I'd need to get you official confirmation.  

1. Yes, I am sure that all changes need to be approved.  If not, then you could make a silly app, change it and put in things that are not legal and it would continue to run under the radar until someone mentioned it.  

 2. I don't see how it could be, but I guess it's possible.  I would think it would have to be back in dev to make alterations.

3. Of course! if you change the code and put in something that's against the guidelines, or tos the reviewers would catch it and suspend you and you'd be back to square 1 :)

Like I said, I would need to get confirmation but these are my assumptions :) 

I'm going to hold off making any changes until we know for sure.

I'm sure this issue is going to come up repeatedly. I find that I'm constantly tweaking my apps to fix bugs, improve performance, whatever, so there will certainly eventually need to be a graceful way to do that.

 I could be wrong like I said.. .but to continue running it while you are editing and saving changes to it would mean we'd have to be running a copy of the code.. which we very well could be :) 

Just so you know, Stephanie will be checking in today at some point and I did forward her these questions so that she can give you the official word. 

rondata@myspace:

 I could be wrong like I said.. .but to continue running it while you are editing and saving changes to it would mean we'd have to be running a copy of the code.. which we very well could be :) 

Just so you know, Stephanie will be checking in today at some point and I did forward her these questions so that she can give you the official word. 

Hey, if you really wanna work on your apps until we get an answer, why not just start a new one with the old code and call it 2.0 ??

:D 

Yep, that's my plan.

But then when it's got any new features and bug fixes, it'd be nice to have a way to migrate it into the live version somehow.

Otherwise I'd imagine that I'd lose all my active users, directory listing, etc.

I think this is going to be a nightmare for you guys having to re-approve apps as they're updated. Once things are moving smoothly I'd imaging that you're going to let us change live apps without approval, with the idea that if we break the TOS we'll just be booted out permanently or something.

WildFireWeb:

Yep, that's my plan.

But then when it's got any new features and bug fixes, it'd be nice to have a way to migrate it into the live version somehow.

Otherwise I'd imagine that I'd lose all my active users, directory listing, etc.

I think this is going to be a nightmare for you guys having to re-approve apps as they're updated. Once things are moving smoothly I'd imaging that you're going to let us change live apps without approval, with the idea that if we break the TOS we'll just be booted out permanently or something.

I see your point re: losing all active users and directory listing.

Again I have not gotten official answers to any of these yet.  I'm hoping to find out tmw :)

Hi Rondata,

Thanks for pointing me to this thread. I am also looking for information on how to improve applications once they are published. It seems that right now the best solution is to work on a new application (Call it v2 of the application). Then when you are ready to publish the application, ask MySpace to turn your v1 application into development mode again, put the v2 code in it and publish the v1 application again. Hopefully this won't lose the active users and directory listing (Both of which are just too valuable to risk).

This way we can save on the time when our apps are down. If the application users can still see original application while the application is in development mode, then it'll be even better. 

rondata@myspace:

 I'm gonna take a quick stab at these, but I'd need to get you official confirmation.  

1. Yes, I am sure that all changes need to be approved.  If not, then you could make a silly app, change it and put in things that are not legal and it would continue to run under the radar until someone mentioned it.  

 

This would surely be possible but in 99% of cases developers are looking to make honest improvements that will benefit your users When apps are doing something shady it quickly boils to the surface via the watchful eyes of users and other developers. Approving every code change is going to create a massive bottleneck and will ultimately harm your users as it will delay the rate at which beneficial updates are released.

Furthermore, it seems that if someone really wants to do things that are silly or illegal they'll do them via an iFrame. Someone could easily submit a legit iFrame app, get it approved and then make a host of illegitimate changes without MDP approval.

Ultimately, shady people will find a way to do what they want. The community of users and developers will help you to ensure that their shadiness is short-lived. And honest app developers won't be presented with barriers to innovation.

Just my $0.02.

Matt

You make a lot of good points. :)

 Again, I'm waiting for official word about this. I did send these questions on and am hoping for fast feedback. I think this is one of the most pressing new questions that there are. 

Rhonda 

I make minor changes to multiple apps every day. Sometimes it's jut a typo. Sometimes it's a new feature. I'm sure everyone does the same. This would mean re-approving tens of thousands of apps a day for MySpace.

Right now, I would like to add the authentication to my live app which wasn't available when it was published. I would really like to know the answer to this before I do.

Thanks for your attention to this, Rhonda. In our particular case we'd like to make some changes to the box that displays on the user homepage and profile.

For the time being though, until there is a better process, what is the best way to make changes to our live app? I'm still not clear on how to submit the changes once they have been made.

Thx,
Matt

I am sure there are other app developers who have tried to changed their apps after publishing. Can one of them submit their experience.

we are in similar situation..need to make some changes on user profile box, but unsure of how to do that without impacting users.