Timing the Launch of Your App
There are a few things you want to do before choosing a date to announce the availability of your app. First, review the upcoming date as best you can to see what other big announcements might be occurring on that particular date. You can
Google or Yahoo! dates and check the News sections of these sites to uncover big news events that might be coming up.
If Apple is making a big announcement on the same day, you may want to look at doing your announcement the day before or the day after. At least make your press release go live at 8 a.m. London time in an effort to get your news out early.
Now you may think that it doesn't matter because your press release is small by comparison to that of a big company, but keep in mind that you are trying to get other news agencies to pick up your announcement and do a write-up on it. If there are too many announcements competing for their time, your announcement may get overlooked. It's best to find a time on the calendar that doesn't have so many big press releases going out.
When you submit your app for review by Apple, you can specify a day that you would like your app to go live on the App Store. Reviews (at the time of this writing) generally took one to two weeks to receive approvals. If you select a release date for three weeks from the date of your submittal, Apple will honor that date and post your app on the day you have selected.
If you select a release date before they actually complete the review of your app, they will release your app to the App Store as soon as it's approved. Therefore, if you want to time the release of your app with a press release announcement, you should select a date beyond two weeks to make sure that you have some control over the posting of your app. An example of setting the date for your app's submittal is shown in Figure 8.3.
The Apple Developers Guide has the following verbiage about setting the date for your app: "Availability Dateāthe date when your application will be available for purchase on the App Store. If your application has not been approved by Apple prior to this date, your application will go live as soon as it has been approved. This is a global date, and applies to all territories selected. If you change this date, it will apply to all versions of your application, not just the version where you are making the change."
Continue reading here: Do You Have What It Takes
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