his is one of the frequently asked questions by mobile developers. And still, we find it helpful to share our experience and recommendation for this case.
First of all, let’s understand the problem. Many users may argue that you need to release the new version and App Store and Google Play will handle the distribution for all users. And users will automatically get new updates installed if the appropriate settings are ON. While in most cases this is true and you should not force your users to upgrade to every new version, there still can be cases when you have to get rid of older versions.
Here are some real-world examples from our experience:
If your app is using server-side APIs to get data, then inevitably there will be API changes during the active development period. While it is a good practice to have backward compatibility, you can’t endlessly support the old versions, and one day you would love to upgrade all order users and get rid of that deprecated API.
Sometimes, there are some nasty errors pushed to the production, and you only realize it when users start complaining. In this case, you just quickly give a hotfix and wish all your users will get the new fixed version immediately.
For collaborative applications, when you support multiple platforms (iOS, Android, web) you need some breaking changes to be pushed for all versions.
https://www.inconceptlabs.com/blog/force-update-mobile-app-when-new-version-available
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