ISV Instructions Application.app

Industrial Equipment Manufacturing (IEM) and Food Manufacturing & Distribution are also delivered as an EmbedApp replacing the Microsoft Base app.
In order to accommodate these type of apps Microsoft includes the Application app in their delivery set which functions as a Proxy to avoid redefining the dependencies for each installation.
As of Business Central 2020 Wave 1 update 4 (16.4) all bugs in this Application app were ironed out so when the app.json of the Application app is correctly defined and compiled in version 16.4 also runtime packages install without any problem.

Contents of the app.json

{
"id": "82cc5a2f-409e-4ab8-b603-15dcfd9c11d7",
"name": "…", //Your app name
"publisher": "…", //Your ISV name
"privacyStatement": "…", //Link to your privacy statement
"EULA": "…", //Link to your software terms
"help": "…", //Link to your help files
"contextSensitiveHelpUrl": "…", //same
"supportedLocales": ["en-US"], //For US localizations
"url": "…", //Link to your website
"logo": "…", //Link to your logo file
"brief": "…", //Brief description of your app
"description": "…", //Description of your app
"dependencies": [], //Leave dependencies empty
"application": "16.4.0.0", //Must be 16.4 or higher
"platform": "16.0.0.0", //Must be 16 or higher
"version": "16.5.47913.0", //Version number of your app
"runtime": "5.0", //
"target": "OnPrem", //Only for on-prem deployments
"showMyCode": true, //True or False
"idRanges": [{…}] //Your object ID ranges
}

Also refer to Microsoft doc: The Microsoft_Application.app File Since EmbedApps, like IEM, customize standard objects there is a chance that your app interferes with IEM functionality. Previously this was resolved during merging. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible and therefor it is very important that these types of installations are thoroughly tested.
If any conflicts occur STAEDEAN is prepared to work with the ISV to investigate the possibilities of avoiding these conflicts.

Creating IEM as an extension is a work in progress with a release date scheduled for FY21. In the meantime, STAEDEAN will follow the Microsoft monthly updates with one restriction: As soon as IEM is released on the next major version, the updates on the previous version will stop. For example as soon as IEM for BC 17.0 is released the updates on IEM BC 16.x will stop.