How To Create An Apple App Store Listing?

There are some tasks you have to complete before submitting your app for review to Apple’s App Store. Your app goes through a strict review process. If any of your app listing elements go against their policies, there are chances that your app may be rejected.

So here, we’ll guide you through the important tasks to be performed before submitting your app for review in the App Store.

Note: To upload the app to your account, you should have a valid Apple ID and an enrolment in the Apple Developer Program as a company/organization. Click here to know more about how to create an Apple Developer account.

App Icon: Your app icon is the first visual element that users see when searching or when viewing the app details. Make sure to make a strong first impression. Work with your graphic designer to make an icon that gives meaning to your app. Make it simple, minimalistic, and clear.

App Name: The app name appears at the top of the App Store listing along with the app icon. The character length is limited to 30.

Some tips to select your app name:

The subtitle can be changed when submitting a new version of the app.

Subtitle: This appears beneath the app’s name in the App Store listing. It is in a smaller font. Again the character limit is 30. You can use it to insert a tagline or something related to the product or service. If you aren’t able to insert keywords in the app name, the subtitle is a great way to do so. It has to explain the value of your app.

Content Rights: This is for apps leveraging third-party commercial content (such as music and art). In such a case, the app owners must be ready to submit legal documentation.

Primary Language: You have to specify your app’s primary language used in the text, audio, and video content.

Primary & Secondary Category: You can choose a category from the following options- Books, Business, developer Tools, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Food & Drink, Games, Graphics & Design, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Magazines & Newspapers, Medical, Music, Navigation, News, Photo & Video, Productivity, Reference, Shopping, Social Networking, Sports, Stickers, Travel, Utilities, and Weather. Select the “Made for Kids” checkbox if your app is designed for kids aged 11 and under.

Selecting the right category is important for your app’s discoverability. E-commerce apps can select the category as Shopping or Lifestyle.

Age Rating: The age rating is for Apple to decide the minimum appropriate age for app usage. It will ask you a few questions about topics such as violence and profanity. Based on your responses, Apple will assign an appropriate age rating to your app

License Agreement: You can adopt Apple’s policy or provide your own license agreement. We recommend you adopt the default Apple’s policy.

Pricing and Availability: If your app is paid, you have to set the pricing here in this section. Apple allows you to establish tiered pricing. You’ll also have to decide the countries where your app will be available. Also, when you set up the pricing, you have to specify the effective date for a price change.

App Privacy: You have to provide app privacy details to Apple before publishing your app to the App Store. It contains a set of questionnaires regarding data collected from users through the app and its usage. To start, navigate to your app in the App Store Connect. Click App Privacy in the left sidebar. Select Get Started in the center of the page.

Now, you’ll be redirected to Apple’s definitions of “Collect” and “Third-party partners”. Review this information. Then, answer the following question- Do you or your third-party partners collect data from the app? A YES answer will prompt further inquiry and you have to provide information on your data collecting principles. Apple may be asking you over 100 questions depending on the types of data that your app collects. After submitting the answers, a “security nutrition label” is generated that is listed with your app in the App Store listing.

In-App Purchases: This is configured in the App Store Connect. You can contact our implementation specialists at Swipecart to complete this task as it requires implementing some app code and configuration changes.

App Preview: An app preview is a short video of your app’s features and functionality. It is a great opportunity to show the app usage experience. These videos can be up to 30 seconds long and not more than 500 MB in size. You can feature up to three app previews on the App Store and even localize them for all available App Store languages.

Make sure the first few seconds of your video are compelling because it plays on mute when users view the app page. Also, Apple automatically makes the 5-second mark as the poster frame. The supported file formats are MOV, M4V, and MP4.

Screenshots: These are images captured from your app’s UI to tell viewers about the app’s UX. App Store allows up to 10 screenshots. The first three images appear in search results (if no app preview is available).

Focus on the essence and highlight features and functions of the app. The screenshot should be able to fully convey the app’s value to the viewer. Click here for app preview and screenshot specifications.

Promotional Text: This is optional content that appears above the description in the App Store. You can update this content without a new review. The text can be up to 170 characters. The promotional text is used for special occasions or to draw the viewer’s attention to something unique such as limited-time sales or new product launches.

Description: The app description can be up to 4000 characters long. It is about the features, functionalities, and benefits of the app. For best results, insert keywords and emojis wherever relevant. Write a compelling first sentence because this is what viewers read without having to tap to read more. The description has to be short, concise, and easy to understand. You can update the description whenever you submit a new version of the app.

Keywords: Provide a comma-separated list of keywords based on what you think your audience will use to search for your app. Keywords help in App Store search results, so be wise and list high-ranking low-volume keywords. You can submit up to 100 characters total with terms separated by commas and no spaces (spaces can be used to separate words within a keyword phrase such as Real Estate).

Don’t use trademarked terms, celebrity names, protected words, offensive or objectionable terms, rival app names, and non-relevant terms. The same holds true for app description too.

Support URL: This is a link to a page on your website where app users can find resources for help. You can provide your website’s Contact Us page as the URL.

Marketing URL: It is the main website URL or a link to the page on the website where users can find product information.

App Review Contact Information: Submit your name, contact number, and email id to Apple in case they want to reach us during the app review process. These details are hardly used as they contact you usually through a dedicated channel within App Store Connect.

App Review Notes: This allows you to provide some special instructions or additional information for using the app features during its review.

Authentication Details: If the app reviewer needs to log in using a username and password, provide these details here. Authenticate these credentials before submitting them because if the reviewer can’t sign in, the app review stops until the issue is resolved.

Attachment: Here, you attach images, PDFs, videos, and word files as supported documents for app submission. Videos may be necessary when you can’t provide a live test account like in the case of financial clients. Videos also may be required when your app supports or communicates with any hardware that is not available to the reviewer.

Privacy Policy: Adding a publicly accessible URL where the users can learn more about their privacy choices for your app and how to manage them is one of the requirements to publish your app on the App Store. You can find the details on app privacy details for App Store here. The URL has to contain complete details of your app’s privacy policy.

To add the privacy policy link in the App Store Connect, go to My Apps -> App Store tab. Here, you’ll find the App Information section on the left menu. Among the many details on the page, scroll to the Privacy Policy URL. Type the URL that contains the online privacy policy details for the app.

Once your app is approved, you’ll find the Privacy Policy link under the Information on the app landing page generated by the App Store.

How much time does it take for the app review process to be completed?

You can check the app review status in the My Apps section of App Store Connect. The review times vary for different types of apps. Over 50% of the apps are reviewed in 24 hours and over 90% are reviewed in 48 hours. Generally speaking, we can say the app review takes anywhere between 2 to 14 days.

If you have any queries regarding app submission on Apple’s App Store, you can reach out to our implementation specialists at Swipecart. They’ll guide you at each step in the app submission process. You can also reach us here.