iOS App Submission Tips

So, I have four app in the app store based on two code bases.  Here are some tips that you may find useful and that I wish I had known.

1. Wait until your app is REALLY finished before submitting it.  It only really gets one shot at the front page of the "new apps" part of the appstore.  The people who see it there are going to be your initial user base.  If its only half finished then people will download it, try it and uninstall it.  No questions asked.
2. Make sure it is in the right category.  I released a music news app and foolishly marked it as "news" first and "music" second.  Who looks in the news category?If i had marked it the other way round, i would have got a lot more hits.  
3. It usually takes a week to get a new app approved.  The app store gets the most action at the weekend, so submit your app on a Thursday or Friday.  Then nine times out of ten it will be live on the Saturday and you will get maximum exposure.
4. You have two apps, same code base but slightly different content.  Say, one is a "lite" app.  If you submit two apps, one an update to an existing one and the other a new app based on the same code, the update will be done before the new app.  I think it is about 4 days for an update and a week for a new one.  This makes me think updates are not as rigorously checked or that there is less paperwork for the reviewer to fill in.  I am just saying ...
5. "Lite" apps.  They are there to give someone a taster of the real app and nothing else.  If I am not doing many updates then I have no problem with renaming the lite app and resubmitting it as a new app.  That way it gets maximum visibility.  Some existing users will not get the update, but who cares as they probably are not going to buy the app.

iPhone Fragmentation

iPhone users laugh at Android because of its market fragmentation, but it is pretty fragmented itself.  if you are an iPhone dev then you have to worry about which iOS model  you will be running your app on.

iPhone 1 to 3G
Small screen.
Dead slow.
Rubbish camera.
Not compatible with a lot of the latest iOS features.

iPhone 3G/4
Bigger screen.
Fast.
Decent camera.
All latest iOS features.

iPad 1
Biggest screen.
Fast.
No camera.

All latest iOS features.

So to write a universal app you need to include 3!! versions of any artwork you require and at least three (maybe 5) different sized icons for the home pages.  You can't guarantee what features the device will have or what speed it will eventually run at.  Add to that iPone5/iPad2 and you have even muddier water.

Capturing iPhone or iPad screen shots.

I searched for a long time for how to take an iPhone 4 sized screen shot using an old 3G iPhone or Xcode.  There are lots of very old stories floating around the internet from before the iPhone simulator had this facility. You dont need extra software or stitching ordinary screen captures together.  No, you can capture screens from the iPhone simulator using control-command-C.

Simple as that!

Now open Preview, select "New from clipboard" and save the result as a PNG.