Comments on: App Store sorting by ‘Release Date’

By: Han Yu

Han Yu — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:10:39 +0000

We had the same harrowing experience of seeing our App disappear after we changed the availability date of a pending update.

Here are two notes for others experiencing this problem:

- Your app will flicker out, then re-appear in the same herky jerky way. For example, it will disappear from direct search results for the App title, then from the list of apps grouped by Company name, then from top-25 lists. Expect it to disappear and reappear at different rates in the desktop iTunes App store and iPod/iPhone app store. Our app disappeared over a 1-hour period, 2.5 hours after we changed the availability date to the future. It then re-appeared over a 4-hour period, 4 hours after we changed the date to the present.

- If your app is in a top-25 list for either a category or the App Store as a whole, it will re-appear in its original ranking. At least, that’s true if you correct the date quickly, so that massive sales aren’t lost in the “black-out” period.

Hope this helps someone.

By: Antoine A.

Antoine A. — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:17:39 +0000

We’ve had the exact problem you described in your last paragraph. We tried moving the release date of an update in the future. This made our app disappear from the store. We noticed it 15 hours later. By then, we had almost 0 sales for the day, and we dropped from the top15 in most countries to total oblivion. I can’t find a way now to get back up the charts; Seems this managed to kill our app.

By: Jason Green

Jason Green — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:41:53 +0000

Oh BTW, I still do get emails also when the apps are approved. You might double check your user roles in iTunes connect and make sure you are set for all notifications.

By: Jason Green

Jason Green — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:04:05 +0000

My experience just now is that updating your availability date every day DOES move you to the bottom of the “queue” (or whatever the crap random methodology is being used here).

We had 3 program updates we uploaded within a few days of each other. I kept changing the availability date daily trying to make sure we would be listed at the top of release date. After about 3 weeks of nothing getting approved, I picked one of the apps to quit updating. It got approved 5 days later, but the other two still have not been.

I’m HOPING if I quit updating them too they will be approved in 5 days or so also. :)

By: Brandon Middleton

Brandon Middleton — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:13:57 +0000

This is the most useful piece of info I’ve looked at all day. Thanks so much for posting . . . it really helped me to make sense of some of the craziness surrounding app submission and rankings and approvals and all of that.

By: Kris

Kris — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:29:41 +0000

Update: App was just approved so I can say that the answer to my above question (originally brought up by Dani) that changing the App Info while you are “in Review” does not seem to effect your position in the que.

By: Kris

Kris — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:39:03 +0000

So… does anyone know what Dani was wondering? Does changing the App Info while you are “in Review” effect your position on the review que? (if there even is a real que)

Or at least does anyone have any good example data to support or disprove this possibility?

By: Dani

Dani — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:19:01 +0000

What if one was to change the availability date once a day? Then you might only be behind by one day.
I wonder if changing the App info would put you in the back of the que.

Anyway we just submitted a game yesterday. Here is our post. http://ayumusoft.com/?p=170

For now we just have 3 people watching the status of our approval.

By: Submission Complete | Ayumusoft

Submission Complete | Ayumusoft — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:15:18 +0000

[...] now play the iTunes Connect refresh game as described by the good folks at Magic Jungle Software. “…just before it appears in the App Store. As long as the developer stays awake 24 [...]

By: Doug Hogg

Doug Hogg — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:03:06 +0000

Thank you…thank you…thank you. I have been wandering around various sites trying to figure this out for days. Finally a clear, comprehensive description of the situation. Also thank you to the people who posted comments about their experiences; they help to clarify things further.