All right. So once you've created your own apps and you're ready to put them onto the App Store, 1
what do you do then? 2
How do you go about it? 3
Well, it's actually pretty easy for iOS. And with Apples, that one has always pay them some money. 4
So in order to be able to list your apps on the App Store for sale, you have to sign up for the Apple 5
developer program, and that is a $99 per year commitment which is not much depending on how much you 6
make of the App Store. 7
And that will give you some super powers including being able to develop more than three apps per week, 8
for example. 9
So, essentially, most of your Xcode limits that you've seen in previous tutorials with free accounts 10
disappear. 11
So your code signing are valid, 12
so your provisioning profiles for your apps are valid 13
for a year at a time. 14
So if you install a testing app onto your phone, you don't have to reinstall it from X code every week, 15
as you do with the free accounts. 16
So once you sign up for the Apple developer account, and I strongly urge anybody who's thinking about 17
doing this to wait until they're ready to put their first app onto the App Store, because as with all 18
App project, your estimate of how long it takes is usually a lot shorter than how long it actually takes. 19
So given that you're buying into a yearly recurring subscription, I would recommend to just wait until 20
you're actually ready to put it on the App Store. 21
And then once you are ready and once you sign up as an Apple developer, you get access to iTunes Connect. 22
And this is the main portal that you'll be using to upload new apps, manage previous versions of apps, update 23
your apps, check out the analytics in terms of how many people are using it, 24
where are most of your users based, 25
all of that kind of stuff. 26
And you can look at, of course, sales and trends, look at how much money you're making per day or per week, 27
then you can look at the payments, financials, as well as define users and roles. 28
So the rest of them are pretty self-explanatory. But when you're ready to upload your app, the one that 29
you want to head into is My Apps. And then once you're here, you want to click the Add Button to add a new 30
app. So you select the platform that you want to target. 31
You give your app a name and your name has to be unique on the App Store. 32
So just search for it on the App Store first. 33
It avoids you having to refill this form. 34
So if you have a name like Hello, then it's probably quite likely that somebody else has named an app 35
called Hello. 36
So increasingly, you're seeing longer and longer app names. 37
Apple's guidance is that your name shouldn't be a load of keywords. 38
So I think you get something like 100 characters, but don't try to fill it all up because it gets truncated 39
on the App Store, 40
and it's actually frowned upon to have just a bunch of keywords, you know, like, say, if you were a weight loss 41
app, calling your app weight loss, Weight Loss, Weight Loss, Weight Loss, it's not going to endear you to anybody 42
essentially. 43
Give it something that people can actually remember and recognize. 44
Okay. 45
So the next thing is that you choose your Primary Language so that it knows how to format your listing, 46
and then you choose a Bundled ID. 47
And this is very important. 48
The Bundle ID is this part of your app. 49
And once you've signed your app using your developer account, that Bundle ID should show up somewhere in 50
this dropdown lists. 51
Now, if it doesn't, then you'll have to go to the developer portal, and add it manually, 52
and Apple guides you through that. 53
But in most cases, you'll see it show up over here. 54
Now, the next thing is the SKU, or the stock-keeping unit, and that is something that is just for your 55
reference only. 56
It's just a way of giving each app a unique ID amongst all your other apps, so that you can identify 57
it. 58
And finally, you can limit user access, so you can say that maybe the developer doesn't get to change 59
the bank account that the money gets paid into, 60
et cetera. 61
And finally, once you're ready and once you've satisfied all of these requirements, then you can go and 62
hit Create. 63
Now, once you've successfully created an app, then you get taken to this page. And here, you can change 64
the category in which to put your app. 65
You can update a Privacy Policy URL. 66
You can change the Bundle ID. 67
You can set the Pricing, 68
so how much you want to charge for the app, whether you want to set any sales periods, whether if there's 69
a volume discount, et cetera. 70
But the most important part is here. 71
This is the part where you submit most of the information for your app. 72
And one of the things that you need to provide are screenshots for your app. 73
So, in the App Marketing course, we go into detail about how to optimize your screenshots for maximum 74
downloads. 75
And we talk about that quite a lot over there, 76
so I'm not going to repeat that. But essentially, you just need to upload screenshots of your app whist in use 77
to specify what should get shown on the App Store listing of your app. 78
And then, you enter a Description. 79
So in here, you're going to want to put in some of the keywords that you want to target a couple of 80
times. 81
And you also have a 100 character keyword field. 82
And if you remember from the app marketing modules, we spoke about how to do keyword research, how 83
to do App Store optimization, and how to try to rank highly for your target keywords. And then you're going 84
to submit your Builds. 85
So the Build will show up here once you submitted it using Xcode or using Application Loader. 86
So in order to do that, you first have to connect a physical device. 87
So make sure that you've got your physical device plugged in and connected and you should build your 88
app to your physical device, and make sure that it works. 89
Then, next, you want to go to Product and you want to hit Archive, and that's going to archive your project. 90
And this takes a little bit of time. But once it's done, It'll show you a pop-up. So once that's complete, 91
then it's going to take you to an archive of your project. 92
And at this point, you want to first hit Validate just to make sure that everything checks out and 93
Xcode is happy with you, and then you want to just go ahead and click upload to App Store, then you select 94
the development team which is, of course, your account with Apple developer license, hit Choose. And then 95
it's just asking you, "Do you want to send this project to Apple?" and you can go ahead and hit Upload. 96
Now, once you do, it's going to start a long and arduous process of uploading your app to Apple's servers. 97
And that process can take anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour and I've had everything in between. 98
Depending on the size of your project, depending on the complexity of your project, 99
that process can take a while. 100
So don't be in a rush when you're at this stage, basically. 101
And once your app has been uploaded and Xcode is telling you that everything's succeeded, then if you 102
wait for about five to ten minutes after that, after you get the green tick from Xcode, then it should 103
show up over here in your list of Builds. 104
Now, that will depend on whether you selected the right Bundle ID right in the beginning, 105
so making sure that your Bundle ID, under the General Information is the same as the Bundle ID in your 106
Xcode. And all going well, you'll see a version of your app appear here and you can select it. 107
Next, you have to upload an app icon. And this has to be, I think, 1024 by 1024 pixels. 108
And, again, before you make your app icon, please have a look at the App Marketing Module, so that you can figure 109
out how to optimize that icon for the most number of downloads and increase your chances of getting 110
more revenue. 111
Now, finally, App Preview Information, this is not public at all, 112
this is basically where you put down some contact information, so that if your review does not pass, they 113
know who to contact and they can e-mail you and tell you to fix something in your app. 114
And, historically, Apple have been pretty militant with their reviews. 115
They are very serious about their Review Guidelines and you should definitely read them if you have 116
not already, and I'll link to it in the text below 117
this video. It includes things like, "The App Store is not a place for your Hello World apps." 118
And if you are a new developer and you've just built something that's terrible, 119
don't upload it to the App Store. 120
I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially, that was the gist. 121
But anyways, this is for your App Review Information. And this box is actually very, very useful. 122
Most people think that it's notes like "What are notes?", but this is actually a place where you can write something 123
that shows up for the app reviewer when they're reviewing your app. So it can be really useful to point 124
them towards certain things and reduce delays in your review process. 125
So, for example, if you implement in-app purchases in your app, you have to have a restore purchases button. 126
So if the user updates their OS or if they upgrade their phone, et cetera, that they can reclaim all of their 127
paid in-app purchases. 128
And sometimes some Apple reviewers really have problems finding that restore button, 129
so that could be something that you might want to write to them. Just say on the screen, you'll find the 130
button on the bottom left corner, et cetera. 131
And trust me, in the past, I've had, you know, five to ten emails just batting back and forth about a button 132
and where it is located. 133
So it can be really useful to anticipate these problems. 134
And finally, you've got a Release option, so whether you want to release it on a particular date, if you've 135
got a big press release coming out on a certain day, you might want to time the app release with that, et cetera. 136
So that is the gist of how you upload an app to the App Store. 137
And this process can take anywhere between one hour to ten hours. 138
And never underestimate how much work it takes to complete these fields. 139
So give yourself plenty of time, make sure that you've got your screenshots and your app icon ready, 140
and that you've got your optimized keywords and your description as well, so that you don't end up typing it on 141
the spot because that will usually result in a less than optimal outcome.