iPhone App name (springboard and target) list of allowed special characters

Question

I'm looking for a set of chars that can be used to include in the app name for app store submission.

So far I know that alphanumeric characters are ok in the app name that is displayed on the springboard Can an app name start with a digit? Can an app name have + somewhere in it? Can it have a ? mark? Can it have dots . or colons : ?

I ran into problems when submitting an app with a + in it AppName+ displayed fine during debugging, but I could not submit it as a package name for the app store.

What about the name used to list the product in the app store?

I know that : is allowed in the app store name What about +,-?/:. ?

I need to understand which characters I can display to the user as the app name on the iPhone and which characters can be displayed in the app store.

For example, my app's springboard name is called CoolApp++ . This is the name that is displayed under the icon. To submit the app to the app store, I need to provide bundle identifier in the form of : com.yourcompanyname.appname

Any input is appreciated!

Oracular

Possible, not quite, duplicate: #8115705 – Oleander

Answer 1

Now, there is no guarantee as to whether this will pass submission, but any symbol you can find on the keyboard manually is fair game (!?&$@();"-/::[]+}=#*^_€|•<€£|, etc.), along with most if not all Latin-based diacritic characters, Sanskrit, kanji, Korean, both simplified and mandarin Chinese, and Russian. I'm sure there are others, but iOS is only now expanding support for several exotic languages.

When it comes to Unicode and Emoji, there are some characters that iOS might not be able to render, or that apple would deem inappropriate. The springboard was never meant to be a chaotic mess of symbols, it was meant to be a place where people could associate application icons and titles with apps. Though apple seems to be backing Emoji ever since they expanded the japanese keyboard.

So, while they may be found in certain apps, to use apple's words "If we reject your application, do not cite them as examples to appeal your rejection."

Oleander

Thanks for a great answer! Together with the bundle display name plist property I would be able to name my apps with exotic names :) – Oracular

Answer 2

An app has 4 names: the product or bundle file name, the bundle ID suffix, the App store name given to iTunes Connect, and the Bundle Display name under the icon. Only the latter 2 names allow special characters and spaces. The first 2 need to be plain ASCII with no spaces. You can set all 4 app names separately, and plenty of apps approved by Apple do have these 4 names all different from one another (as long as they aren't misleadingly different, I suppose).

The Target or Project may try to set these 4 names all the same at the beginning, but they can all be edited and changed to youR preferred, separate and 4 different app names latter.

Maishamaisie

Answer 3

Almost all characters are allowed, for example, there are apps with names with diacritics, Chinese and Korean alphabets. There are plenty of apps with ".com" names, or "AC/DC" for example. As long as it the display name is close to the actual name of the application (ie. abbreviations etc. are allowed, entirely different bundle names are not). Apple might reject applications with garish names though.

Ridgley