The problem is this: The App Store asks for an “What’s new in this version” description.
If I update my app a few times in succession, I fear current users of my app would only see the last “What’s new in this version” note even if they still use the first version.
How can I make sure every user notices big and important changes even after I submit a smaller bugfix update which does not actually deliver the great new features?
What’s best practice to ensure big feature updates don’t get flushed down the tube by minor bugfix updates for users who did not read the big update note?
In other words: Imagine you are a user. You only update once per month. Then this big update arrives and you don’t even read the description. A week later another update arrives for the same app, which only says: “Some minor bug fixes”. A couple of days later you decide to have a look, and go to the Updates section of the App Store app. You see there’s an update for one of your apps and you tap to read the description. Is all you see “Some minor bug fixes”, or is it “Ten times more features than before. Some minor bug fixes.”?
Get it? It’s really a problem. A few thousand users keep updating to my new version every day (it was a free app – I didn’t get rich). After 1 week only 5% of the total user base updated. It’s not an app you use every day. Now I need to release bug fixes but want that every old version user notices the great new feature in the description!
So must I repeat the “what’s new” info of the previous version and append the new additions (i.e. “bugfixes”), or will the App Store automatically display that previous information as well if the user has a very low version of the app and skips a few updates?
As Devin and Michael have said, the standard procedure is to append your new changes above your old changes. If you have a few small updates in succession, there’s nothing wrong with stringing together 3 or 4 update messages if they are each small.
For the next couple bug fix releases after any major feature release, I always keep the old update description at the bottom so no one misses the changes.
The update message is yours to do anything you want with, including messages to the users (like thank you’s, etc). It doesn’t have to be a strict change-log.