How to Get Your App Published on AppStore Without Delay

Either as an individual user or a company, the ways apps have been helping us cannot be underestimated. This is why the app industry is thriving and good developers are receiving numerous requests to develop new apps.

You have worked rigorously to develop your iOS app, and the next thing you want to do now is to publish it. Obviously, you have chosen the AppStore as your favorite market. However, you’ve heard that many apps, even experienced iOs developers’ apps, face challenges passing through the review stages of AppStore. It can be a daunting process because the review procedure entails things that most developers overlook. In order to make it easier for you, this article provides you with a detailed guideline for passing through AppStore’s review stages and have a smooth publishing experience.

Publishing your App in AppStore

App Evaluation Techniques

If you have chosen a market for publishing your app, these are the steps you need to take in order to make sure that your app is ready for publishing:

1. Acquaint Yourself with the Publishing Process

You need to get yourself acquainted with the publishing guidelines of the app market you have chosen to publish your app. These include their app development requirements, design and, testing strategies, as well as their review guidelines.

2. Ensure That the App Market has Your Target Audience

You want to publish your app in this particular market because you are assuming that there is a target audience who could download or purchase your app. Therefore, you need to make sure that the market has potential users for your app. In order to do this, you need to explore the app market to know whether the market has customers looking for the features your app is offering. Having a clear picture of the needs of the target audience that visit the store will ensure better conversion rates when your app is launched on the market.

3. Decide Whether You Want Your App to Be Free or Paid

Before you publish your app you should need to decide whether you want to make it available for free or not. This decision is critical because once you have published your application as a free app, it will always remain free and you will not be allowed to change it to a paid version.

4. Understand the Policies of the App Market

Every app market has its own policies and agreements for publishing an app. Before you choose an app market to publish your app, try to have the clear understandings of their policies and agreements. If you violate one of their policies, your app may be suspended, even your developer account may be terminated.

5. Confirm Your App Conformity

Each app market comes with unique standards. Some of these standards include the app compatibility and size. Ensure that your app size does not exceed the acceptable standard of the app market. In regards to compatibility, make sure that your app runs smoothly without a glitch on different versions of the platform that support your app. Moreover, ensure that it works well on various sizes of screens with different pixel density.

6. Test Your App for Quality

Quality testing is a critical step in publishing an app. Therefore, ensure that your app meets the expected quality standards of the platform you have chosen. You need to set up a solid test environment to ascertain your app quality. If there is an error, your app is yet to be ready for publishing, so you have to work on the issues before submitting it.

7. Set Your App Content Rating

Content rating defines you app maturity level. You need to define a specific content rating for your app while you are publishing it. Though options for app maturity level vary among app markets, you have to choose the user maturity level that fits for your app so as to filter out your app when users choose different settings.

8. Define Your App Coverage

You can control the regions you want your app to be available in. Whether you want your app to be distributed to particular countries, continents or worldwide, the decision is yours. Define your coverage early on so that you have enough time to include any localized contents if that is necessary.

Requirements for Publishing an App on App Store

In order to make your app get through the AppStore review processes, you need to understand their guiding principles. The guidelines are designed to provide a safe user experience and also offer all developers the opportunity to get approved for publishing. The App Store guidelines are divided into 5 sections:

1. Safety

This guideline is to ensure that your app is safe for all users. This is to make your app free of any objectionable contents, such as racism and sexism, any humiliating, intimidating and abusing contents or inflammatory religious remarks. In short, it should be free of any content that could trigger violence or discrimination. Moreover, an app with user-generated content must include channels for filtering and blocking abusive contents and unwelcomed users. It should also come with parental control features as well as physical and data safety.

2. Performance

Before you submit your app to AppStore review, it must be in the final stage with all required and accurate metadata and URLs that are fully functional. The app should be free of any temporary contents, such as placeholder texts and empty websites. Ensure that it is tested on-device for stability and bugs. If your app features a login, include a demo account info. Therefore, you need to have performed some levels of testing before submitting it to the AppStore Review.

3. Business You must make your app monetizing strategy clean and clear for the review, as otherwise it will delay your app review and it may be rejected. If your app is irrationally expensive or it is suspected to cheat users by providing fake feedback in order to gain higher rankings or positive reviews, it will be rejected. AppStore tries to maintain its integrity at all cost. Moreover, if your app business model is not obvious, ensure that you explain it in the app’s metadata and the review notes.

4. Design

App Store places customer satisfaction above all. Thus, if you want your app to be approved, you need to consider customer experience in your design. AppStore is looking for products that are simple, innovative, refined and easy to use. “Ensure that your app comes with a simple, innovative and convenient-to-use user interface and functionalities, and it is engaging to both existing and new customers” says Vasile of Creative27, an app design agency. Complex apps have no place on the App Store. Be innovative, come with your own idea and do not copy popular apps. If you copy, your app will not be approved.

5. Legal

Your app must respect the legal requirements of any of the locations you desire to make it available. This means that your app must conform to the local laws of the regions you want it to be downloadable in. Generally, AppStore doesn’t accept an app that supports or encourages criminal activities or reckless behavior. Furthermore, user privacy protection is paramount in the AppStore. Therefore, ensure that your app comes with features that protect users’ data; respects the user’s permission and access on their devices; request for data that are only relevant to its core functionality; user’s personal information should not be required for account sign-in for the app to function.

Stages An App Undergoes for Approval on App Store

Before your app can be approved for publishing on AppStore, it has to pass through the following stages:

1. Build Your App with Xcode 9 and With the Latest SDKs

You need to download Xcode 9 and use it to build your app. Xcode 9 includes Swift 4 and the latest SDKs that are required for all Apple platforms. However, if your app is created in Swift, App Store allows you to submit it in the Swift 3.2 version and later migrate the individual module to Swift 4.

2. Update Your App

Refine your app and update it with the latest iOS versions, such that it is feasible with the latest versions of macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. Doing this will make your app take the advantages of the new and great features and capabilities that the latest versions offer.

3. Optimize Your App

AppStore only approves apps that are optimized for users’ devices. In regards to app optimization, you should ensure that your app downloads and installs fast, and it does not rapidly drain the device battery. In addition, it should occupy as less storage space as possible.

4. Test Your App

An app that will be approved and published for customers’ use on AppStore should be tested and refined with valuable feedback. You can invite users to directly test the app on their devices, such as iPad, iPhone, Apple TV and Apple Watch and obtain valuable feedback

App Testing Guide for Publishing on App Store

AppStore app testing guide seems stressful but it is designed to help developers design apps that feature excellent customer/user experience. The guide highlights areas that most app developers frequently overlook. The test is done to get rid of app failures due to untested circumstances. The following tests have to be performed:

1. Release Build Test

This refers to testing of your app workflow in Xcode. This is different from running the test through a debugger. The advantage is that it reveals problems that may remain undetected during the app development. It can be done via the iOs, watchOS and tvOS platforms by using TestFlight. TestFlight is the App Store’s preferred method as it makes it easier for you to invite users for testing your app on their iOS devices. Via the users’ email addresses, you will be able to invite up to 10 000 testers and gather valuable feedback to improve your app.

2. Test Your App on Devices with Supported OS Versions

An app may not produce any issue on some OS versions but the issue may be reproduced on a specific version or a device type. Hence, you have to test your app on all OS versions as well as all device types that your app supports. This is done to ensure that your app comes with the required customer environment and offers an interesting customer experience for customers on AppStore.

3. Test Your App for Clean Installation

Dependence on previous data while developing an app has been a common problem. In order to avoid this, you need to carry out clean installation test of your app. This involves launching your app on a device that is free from any data that your older app might have previously created. Therefore, you need to remove your previous app version from the device you want to use for the test.

4. Test Your App Update

If you are submitting an update for your previously published app on App Store, you need to test the update. Since most of your customers will be upgrading from your previous release to the new one, you have to test the upgrading on top of the previous installation to ensure that the updating process goes smoothly without a hitch. If there are changes you have made to the previous file format, make sure that the existing old format data migrate successfully and it is backwardly compatible.

Conclusion

We have got you covered with all you need to know for getting your app approved and launched on AppStore, the largest and most sought-after app market. If you can follow the guide to develop your app and test it before you submit it to AppStore Review, be assured that your app will be approved for publishing on AppStore without delay.