Maintain same Apple App Prefix and Bundle Identifier for B2B and AppStore apps?

Question

We have an existing AppStore app and we also want to create a version of the app that our clients can distribute through their MDMs without re-signing it. The main reason they want to use an MDM is so they can control when they upgrade to new versions of our app irregardless of their App Store upgrades.

We've successfully done that using a second Apple Enterprise account but that app has a different App Prefix and Bundle Identifier and so the deeplinks we've configured through our Branch.io no longer work because we have to to specify the App Prefix and Bundle Identifier in the Branch configuration. The Branch configuration allows multiple Bundle Identifiers but only one App Prefix.

Ideally, we can have one deeplink for both the App Store and MDM versions of the app.

If we join the Apple B2B program, can we:

1. Give them an app through the B2B program with the same App Prefix as the App Store and signed as an App Store app
2. That they can use with their MDM without them having to re-sign it
3. That they can choose to update whenever they want (or at least on a different schedule than App Store)
4. And it will have the same Apple App Prefix and Bundle Identifier?

Answer 1

The bundle id is the app. You cannot have the same bundle id for an App Store app and a custom app, as then you would have two apps with the same bundle id.

Custom B2B apps are still distributed through App Store Connect: an app is either a custom app or an App Store app. It can't be both at the same time.

All of the apps you publish under a particular developer program membership have the same app prefix.

So, you can publish two different versions of your app, one public and one custom, with different bundle ids, but they will have the same app prefix.

The only problem you would have is if a user had both the public and private apps on their device; which one is launched to handle the deep link isn't defined, it presumably your client would use their MDM to manage this.