Need advice on discontinuing an app

[BlingblingPeel]

I'm planning on discontinuing one of my apps as my new born's taking up a lot of my development time. Are there any "best practice tips" to follow? My biggest concern would be disappointing users who paid for the app and find out they can no longer get updates.

Updated:
Would love to hear feedback from users. I'd like to gather some inputs from the user's perspective, so I can make the phase out as least painful as possible for users.

 

[scifan57]

Have you tried asking your question in the apple Developer Forums?
Space: Developer Forums | Apple Developer Forums
You'll have to log in with your Developer ID and password.

 

[BlingblingPeel]

Thanks scifan57, sorry my original post was misleading. I will be posting in the developer's forum as well to get feedback from developers (thanks for suggesting this)

Based on my own personal experience, developers usually will just remove the app when it's no longer profitable. I'd like to ask for some input from app users as well, if one of your favorite apps is about to be removed from sale, what do you feel is the right way to discontinue this app? Do you expect the developer to make some kind of announcements ahead of time? I have not removed any apps before but I guess never-ending updates isn't really a realistic option for me.

 

[twerppoet]

There is not right answer, but this is what I believe I would do in this situation (with the understanding I am not a developer and am probably idealizing things a bit much).

If the app has been recently updated, and likely to continue working for the next minor revision or so; I'd leave it in the store, lower the price or make it free, and change the description to reflect you do not intend to support it any longer. At the top, so it's hard to miss.

At such time the app breaks, or is likely to break, make sure the App Store does not consider it compatible with the hardware or iOS vesion that breaks it. This will keep anyone from accidently downloading a broken app. You can also remove it's availablity for sale, but not from the store. That way people still on older devcices and versions of iOS can re-download thier purchased app if needed.

Or, if the app has a strong following and/or unique functions/features, you could ask around and see if any other developer (who you consider reliable) wants to take the app over.

I don't see how you can do much more than this.

 

[BlingblingPeel]

Thank you, great inputs.

 

[NSquirrel]

From and app user's point of view, I received a message as part of a final update to say that an app ( or in fact a series of apps ) would no longer be supported or developed and would shortly be removed from the app store.