Submitting Your App to iTunes App Store

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for! You are submitting your completed app to iTunes App Store. There are several steps to this process, so you’ll want to have all your ducks lined up before you even think about submission. At a minimum, you’ll need the following to complete the app…

Store submission process:

  • A plain-text description for the application (4,000 characters max).
  • A URL where people can learn more about your app.
  • A support URL and email address so people can contact you with issues pertaining to your app.
  • If your app requires a login, give full access credentials for a demo account so reviewers can test your app.
  • A 512 × 512 pixel icon.
  • A 320 × 480 pixel screenshot of your app.
  • A distribution provisioning profile for the app.
  • A zipped version of the application binary.

Everything you need for submission is fairly straightforward except for the last two items – the distribution profile for the app and the application binary. I’m going to cover those in detail in the following sections.

Creating an iPhone Distribution Provisioning Profile

You need to create a distribution provisioning profile in order to submit your app to iTunes App Store.

  1. Navigate to the iPhone developer site (http://developer.apple.com/iphone/) and log in.
  2. Click iPhone Developer Program Portal on the right sidebar.
  3. Click on Provisioning on the left sidebar.
  4. Click on the Distribution tab.
  5. Click the New Profile button.
  6. Choose App Store as your distribution method.
  7. Enter a profile name (e.g., Kilo Distribution Provisioning Profile).
  8. If you have not created a distribution certificate, you should do so before proceeding. If you see a link on this page labeled “Please create a Distribution Certificate,” click it and carefully follow the instructions. You’ll be making a couple of trips into the Keychain Access application (located in /Applications/Utilities) to create certificate signing requests and to install signed certificates that you download from the portal into your own keychain.
  9. Select the appropriate App ID.
  10. Click the Submit button (you’ll be returned to the Distribution Provisioning Profile list view).
  11. Refresh the page until the Download button appears.
  12. Click the Download button to save the profile to your local download directory (usually the Downloads folder in your Home folder).
  13. Drag the downloaded profile into the Xcode icon on the dock.



Installing the iPhone Distribution Provisioning Profile

Now that the profile is in Xcode, you need to configure the project to use it.

  1. Open Kilo in Xcode if it is not already open.
  2. Select Edit Project Settings from the Project menu (the project settings window will appear).
  3. Click the Build tab if it’s not already active.
  4. Select Distribution from the Configuration pop up.
  5. Select “Settings Defined at This Level” from the Show pop up.
  6. Locate Code Signing→Code Signing Identity→Any iPhone OS Device in the main area of the window.
  7. Click the pop-up list to the right of Any iPhone OS Device to display a list of profile options.
  8. Locate your distribution provisioning profile in the list and select the distribution identity directly beneath it.
  9. Close the Project Info window.

Renaming the Project

Before you submit your app, you need to rename it to Kilo. To do so:

  1. Open the project in Xcode.
  2. Select Rename from the Project menu.
  3. Type Kilo in the “Rename project to” field.
  4. You can leave “Take Snapshot before renaming” checked if you want to save the state of the project prior to making the change, but it will significantly increase the amount of time it takes to process the request.
  5. Click the Rename button.

You will see a series of green circles with white checkmarks in them that indicate that the changes have taken effect.

Prepare the Application Binary

Next, we need to build the application executable and prepare it to be uploaded.

  1. Select iPhone Device – 3.1.2 (or the current version of the iPhone OS) from the Active SDK pop up, then select it again and pick Distribution. This should set the target to something like “Device – 3.1.2 | Distribution.”
  2. Select “Clean All Targets” from the Build menu.
  3. Select “Build” from the Build menu. You may be prompted to allow the application codesign to access your keychain. Allow it to do this so it can sign the app.
  4. Make sure that you didn’t get any errors.
  5. Reveal the app in the Finder.
  6. Compress the app into a ZIP archive.

Submit Your App

Now that you have everything you need:

  1. Log in to iTunes Connect (https://itunesconnect.apple.com/).
  2. Click on “Manage Your Applications”.
  3. Click on the “Add New Application” button.
  4. Follow the onscreen instructions to proceed with the submission process.

If all goes well, you should see your app listed as “In Review”.

While You Wait

Congratulations! You’ve officially submitted your app to the iTunes App Store!

Now what? You’ll probably have to wait a week or two to hear back from Apple. Here are some things you can do in the meantime to keep yourself busy:

  • Set up a nice-looking web page for your app that is located at the URL that you submitted to Apple. Be sure to include the following elements:
    • A video of your app in action. Loren Brichter has posted a great tutorial on making beautiful iPhone screen casts at http://blog.atebits.com/2009/03/not-your-average-iphone-screencast/.
    • A brief description of your app. Just a paragraph or two and 5–10 bullet points.
    • An iTunes link to purchase your app.
    • A few testimonials, with a link to more if you have them.
    • A support email address. You could opt to set up a support forum instead, but you’ll learn more about your customers via email.
  • Send personal email messages to bloggers who you think would be interested in your app. Target blogs that are relevant to the market for your app, and blogs that are about the iPhone in general.
  • Clean out your inbox. You’ll probably get about 5–20 email messages per 100 sales, so if your app is popular, you’re going to be getting a lot of email. Start with a clean slate!
  • Start working on your first upgrade. The more popular apps seem to upgrade about twice a month, which causes a steady buzz and lots of customer goodwill.

 

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