UPDATE – Nov 8th 2009 – Apple has now changed the sorting to the extent that most of this is (thankfully) not true anymore.
In iTunes, and in the iPhone App Store application, there are easily accessible ways of sorting the apps in various categories by ‘Release Date’.
The resulting list is completely broken. It’s useless for app downloaders, and frustrating for developers.
Let me explain.
From an App Store user’s perspective, a recent apps list should contain recent apps, ordered by release date. The best situation would be a twitter-like experience where every refresh reveals what is new.
From a developer’s perspective, the ‘release date’ list influences sales a lot, and trust me, any amount of time on the front page can double sales, or more. Developers love to be at the top of this list.
And here is the problem. The vast majority of apps never show up anywhere near the top of this list.
The first issue is that each day’s apps are listed alphabetically. So every time a new app or two show up in the most recent list, they appear after all of the apps that start with a letter earlier in the alphabet for that day. An app named Zen Tennis will probably never see the top of the list.
So already, an app may debut at #15 in the most recent list, but it gets worse.
The update interval for the recent lists varies from a few hours to a few days. Many applications show up at once in these bulk updates. So if an app is submitted just before a multiple day glut in updates, it can show up over a hundred places down, and never see the light of day.
I could stop here. Clearly the most-recent list is already just a random collection of apps released over the past few days, but it gets worse.
Developers have huge difficulty in making their app appear with today’s date, and not some date in the past. It is impossible to decide on a date in the future that an app appears, and still have it show up at the top of the most-recent list. In an FAQ Apple define the release date that is configurable by developers in iTunes Connect as:
The “Released” date is currently determined by the date of the app’s approval by Apple and the date that the developer has listed for the app’s availability within iTunes Connect, whichever is earlier.
The system works exactly as Apple have stated. So if an availability date is set, it means nothing. That is until the app is approved, and then it means the app’s release date is set to whatever the availability date was set to… That is, as long as the availability date was before the date the app was approved, otherwise it means nothing.
Confusing? Yeah.
But the end result is, if a developer sets an app’s availability date in iTunes Connect to some time after when the app is eventually approved, it will not show up until that availability date. The app will eventually show up well down the most recent list with a release date of when Apple approved it.
On the other hand, if a developer sets the availability date in iTunes Connect to some time before the approval date, it will show up as soon as it is approved. But it will show up with the set availability date, some time before approval. It will show up well down the most recent list.
And the clincher? Developers have no idea when Apple might approve their app.
So there is no way a developer can decide a release date, and have it show up near the top of the most recent list unless….
… they use the loophole. When an app is approved by Apple, an email is sent, just before it appears in the App Store. As long as the developer stays awake 24 hours a day, they can rush in to iTunes Connect on receipt of this email, and change the availability date to today. This is how anything younger than a few days old ever shows up in the most recent list.
OK, so there is a fun game where developers play iTunes Connect tag (while sleeping), and a big part of the App Store search system that is useless for people trying to find apps. But there is one last problem.
When a developer tries to set the release date of an upgrade of their app to some time in the future, their current version DISAPPEARS FROM THE STORE. Yes, watch out for that developers, there is only one release date for all versions, and if it’s in the future, no sales today. I see this happen all the time, and it cost me hundreds of sales when I tried. Developers have no control over when updates appear, and if they try? No sales for you!
iTunes Connect is a scary place.
In summary, the ‘Release Date’ lists and ‘Availability Date’ settings are useless, and have been for some time now. Come on Apple, fix it for all of us.
Great write up. I often have to stop whatever I am doing and update Itunes Connect via iPhone (I am on the west coast in the USA so it makes updating iTunes Connect a bit easier) But nevertheless, Apple needs to make our lives easier.
Comment by Ken — April 19, 2009 @ 2:48 pm
Excellent information. The one thing I always ask as far as this topic: How hard is it to say “The day we approve your app is the day we set as the release date.” and keep such a relatively small store updated hourly? Walmart can keep real-time inventory tracking for thousands of stores, warehouses, and such. Apple can’t keep these simple lists of when things came out up to date reliably.
Comment by Rob — April 20, 2009 @ 12:47 am
[...] App Store sorting by “Release Date” by David Frampton. An excellent write-up detailing the problems currently associated with the “sort by release date” functionality of the iTunes App Store. [...]
Pingback by This Week in iPhone News - April 24/2009 — April 24, 2009 @ 6:35 pm
Yep been through all these problems. At Easter had two apps released on Good Friday; I updated the release dates accordingly but Apple decided not to update the release list until the following Monday. by the time the changes had propagated around the various stores my apps were 2/3 pages down the list.
The other issue I have being in the UK is I often get the “app is ready” email in the middle of the night UK time. if i am awake what is the correct release date? The date the email was sent US time or GMT? Plus you in iTunes connect you can’t change the availability date earlier than today’s date. Guess what in the UK; its already tomorrow!
The whole system is flawed but Apple don’t care because regardless, they are selling apps and getting their 30%.
Comment by Michael Kaye — April 24, 2009 @ 10:20 pm
You bring up some excellent points here!
I have run into a number of these issues myself. I have had success changing the release date as soon as I receive the approval email and fortunately had great success with this right around New Years Day actually.
I really wish that Apple would do something to correct this. They may argue that developers will exploit the system by constantly releasing small updates, but new applications and major updates are still deserving of a chance to premiere at the top of the list!
Comment by David Stoker — April 25, 2009 @ 5:27 pm
Weirdly, my app is available, but I never got the ‘App is ready’ email.
Comment by Tim Summers — May 5, 2009 @ 7:18 pm
Soon after I wrote this post, Apple stopped sending out the emails. Makes the game even more fun, as now we get to refresh iTunes continuously after we submit too!
Comment by David Frampton — May 5, 2009 @ 11:45 pm
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.
Comment by Doug Hogg — May 7, 2009 @ 12:03 am
[...] 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 [...]
Pingback by Submission Complete | Ayumusoft — May 13, 2009 @ 9:15 am
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.
Comment by Dani — May 13, 2009 @ 8:19 pm
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?
Comment by Kris — June 8, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
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.
Comment by Kris — June 8, 2009 @ 11:29 pm
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.
Comment by Brandon Middleton — June 11, 2009 @ 2:13 am
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. :)
Comment by Jason Green — June 28, 2009 @ 10:04 pm
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.
Comment by Jason Green — June 29, 2009 @ 1:41 am
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.
Comment by Antoine A. — July 21, 2009 @ 6:17 pm
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.
Comment by Han Yu — August 29, 2009 @ 2:10 am