I am thinking about registering into iPhone Developer Program, with an enquiry about the name to register. I can only register as ‘standard individual’, but I do not want my real name showing in the AppStore in the future, which seems absurd, with your personal name public when you are not a public figure.
But I do not have a company as well.
So I wonder whether we can register with real name as ‘standard individual’, but using a “screen name” in AppStore? Does Apple allow this? (I know if this is allowed loosely, there will be a lot of confusion in the AppStore as all sorts of strange names will show up, but I really expect there is a way out, like controlled “Screen names”?)
New findings:
A friend just told me that “umbrella organisations” such as a department of university can register with a team, with a team “agent”, several “admin”s and “member”s. It has “Company/Organization ID” in the iOS Developer Program, and the “Account Type” is “Company/Organization”. Obviously it is not a “registered company/organisation” or independent trading entity (I guess only the university itself, not its many departments, is an independent trading entity?)
If a department can register as a “company/organisation”, does it mean there is some kind of middle-ground between an officially registered company and personal name?
First off, this is really a question for Apple or your lawyers or accountants, not SO. But that said:
The basic reason your real name shows up in the iTunes store for an individual account is that when you’re selling on the app store, you are a legal entity (sole proprietor), and unless you have some sort of company structure, the sale of the app is an exchange between the customer and you. This has tax and legal implications which are different than if you were a company. Apple’s goal is not to out your “personal name”, but to be clear about the entity relationship.
Forming an company (in the US, an LLC is easy, inexpensive, and works well for this) is the quickest way of creating a new entity to sell against. You may be able to file some sort of simpler “doing-business-as” papers to operate a sole proprietorship by another name, but that’s dependent on local laws, and would offer none of the (scant but real) legal protection an LLC could offer you in the case of, say, a lawsuit.
(Even as an individual, you can provide a “company” name, which is what shows up in places besides the copyright and seller field. But I assume you already know this.)
My recommendation is this: if you’re just testing the waters, or doing hobby projects, selling under your own name is fine– it doesn’t influence people’s purchasing decisions. If you’re making a go of it as a real business, filing for an LLC is a simple and smart step anyways.