Mobile developers - how do you manage whitelabel apps?
How do you manage multiple whitelabel apps with the same codebase but different in image assets, and text? Also, how do you push a bug fix to multiple whitelabel apps?
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Automation is your friend. The more you can automate, the better. When it comes to the initial setup for each app, it's really hard to automate. But you can automate building and uploading the apps.
I've created a script that takes a single parameter (the app ID), looks up all the config from my API (e.g. icon, splash screen, display name), copies it to the appropriate locations, builds the app, and then gives you the binaries back. I'm planning on automating even more up to the point of uploading and releasing.
If anything can be fetched by the app from your API, it should be. That makes it the most dynamic.
Also, make sure that the white labeled version of your app is worth the cost to you. I sell both a shared app and a white labeled app. The white labeled one is about $500 more to cover the cost of the manual work.
what kind of manual work do you have to do? like uploading and releasing them? Also do you have some sort of automated testing in place? use any device farms?
Initially setting up each app in Google Play and the App Store can't be automated unfortunately. Once you do that initial setup, though, basically everything can be automated. Uploading and releasing is automatable via tools like Fastlane and apkup.
Occasionally, I've had to fix builds/uploads manually. iOS apps are notorious for resisting automation. But it's getting easier.