Mark your calendars for an exhilarating week of technology and community. Be among the first to learn the latest about Apple platforms, technologies, and tools. You’ll also have the opportunity to engage with Apple experts and other developers. All online and at no cost.
Want to make your product pages even better? Have questions about in-app events or implementing subscriptions? Connect with App Store experts and learn how you can make the most of these features. Discover how to attract new customers, test marketing strategies, optimize subscriptions, and so much more. Live presentations with Q&A will be held in multiple time zones and languages.
Registration is open to members of the Apple Developer Program.
Create additional versions of your App Store product page, each of which highlights a feature or specific content, then share a page’s unique URL in your corresponding marketing efforts.
Overview
You can create additional versions of your App Store product page on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 or later to showcase different features or content within your app — such as a particular sport, character, show, or gameplay feature — and share them with different audiences through unique URLs. You can also use these pages to showcase seasonal or culturally relevant content. Each custom product page can include screenshots, promotional text, and app previews that are different from those on your default product page.
Configuring in App Store Connect
When creating a custom product page in App Store Connect, you can choose to start with a copy of your default product page or a blank page. You can then customize screenshots, promotional text, and app previews for any of your page’s localizations. Any metadata you provide must be submitted for review, which you can do independent of an app update. You can also use the App Store Connect API to automate metadata upload and submission for your custom product pages. You can have up to 35 custom product pages per app published on the App Store at a time. For a smooth review experience, make sure your screenshots and app previews follow the specifications and that all metadata follows the App Store Review Guidelines.
Once you’ve created a custom product page, you can use its unique URL to share it through your marketing efforts, such as social media advertising or promotional communications. For example, you can promote a sports team in an email campaign and link to the custom product page that highlights that team. The unique URL adds a new product page ID parameter to the default product page URL. For example: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mountain-climber/id12345678?ppid=45812c9b-c296-43d3-c6a0-c5a02f74bf6e
Custom product pages don’t appear when someone searches for your app or game on the App Store (except as a search results ad that you created with Apple Search Ads). However, they may appear in editorially curated selections on the Today, Games, and Apps tabs.
Apple Search Ads lets you create Today tab ads and search results ad variations based on your eligible custom product pages. Tailor ad messaging and images for different audiences, feature launches, or seasonal promotions when you set up your campaign. Learn more about Apple Search Ads.
Measuring success
Once your custom product pages are live, you can measure their performance in App Analytics in App Store Connect. Under the Acquisition tab, you’ll see product page impressions, downloads, redownloads, and conversion rates to understand how effective each page is at encouraging app downloads. You can also view retention data and average proceeds per paying user for each custom product page. Additionally, you can compare the performance of your custom product pages against your default product page, and see whether people who downloaded your app from a custom product page stay engaged longer or spend more on in-app purchases.
Developers will also gain new flexibility to manage pricing globally
Apple® today announced the most comprehensive upgrade to pricing capabilities since the App Store® first launched, providing developers with 700 additional price points and new pricing tools that will make it easier to set prices per App Store country or region, manage foreign exchange rate changes, and more.
Since the App Store’s inception, its world-class commerce and payments system has empowered developers to conveniently set up and sell their products and services on a global scale. The App Store’s commerce and payments system offers developers an ever-expanding set of capabilities and tools to grow their businesses, from frictionless checkout and transparent invoicing for users to robust marketing tools, tax and fraud services, and refund management.
Pricing has been foundational to these capabilities, enabling developers to choose from a variety of business models, such as one-time purchases and multiple subscription types. These new pricing enhancements will be available for apps offering auto-renewable subscriptions starting today, and for all other apps and in-app purchases in spring 2023, giving all developers unprecedented flexibility and control to price their products in 45 currencies throughout 175 storefronts.
Under the updated App Store pricing system, all developers will have the ability to select from 900 price points, which is nearly 10 times the number of price points previously available for most apps. This includes 600 new price points to choose from, with an additional 100 higher price points available upon request. To provide developers around the world with even more flexibility, price points — which will start as low as $0.29 and, upon request, go up to $10,000 — will offer an enhanced selection of price points, increasing incrementally across price ranges (for example, every $0.10 up to $10; every $0.50 between $10 and $50; etc.).
In each of the App Store’s 175 storefronts, developers will be able to leverage additional pricing conventions, including those that begin with two repeating digits (e.g., ₩110,000), and will be able to price products beyond $0.99 or €X.99 endings to incorporate rounded price endings (e.g., x.00 or x.90), which are particularly useful for managing bundles and annual plans.
Starting today, developers of subscription apps will also be able to manage currency and taxes across storefronts more effortlessly by choosing a local storefront they know best as the basis for automatically generating prices across the other 174 storefronts and 44 currencies. Developers will still be able to define prices per storefront if they wish. The pricing capability by storefront will expand to all other apps in spring 2023.
For developers distributing their apps around the world, the App Store’s global equalization tools have given them a simple and convenient way to manage pricing across international markets. Today’s enhancements expand upon these capabilities, allowing developers to keep their local currency constant in any storefront of their choice, even as foreign exchange and taxes fluctuate. This means, for example, a Japanese game developer who gets most of their business from Japanese customers can set their price for the Japan storefront, and have their prices outside of the country update as foreign exchange and tax rates change. All developers will also be able to define availability of in-app purchases by storefront.
Periodically, Apple updates prices in certain regions based on changes in taxes and foreign exchange rates. This is done using publicly available exchange rate information from financial data providers to help ensure prices for in-app purchases stay equalized across all storefronts. Currently, developers can adjust pricing at any time to react to tax and foreign currency adjustments. Coming in 2023, developers with paid apps and in-app purchases will be able to set local territory pricing, which will not be impacted by automatic price adjustments.
These newly announced tools, which will begin rolling out today and continue throughout 2023, will create even more flexibility for developers to price their products while staying approachable to the hundreds of millions of users Apple serves worldwide, and in turn help developers continue to thrive on the App Store.
Join Apple for another exciting week of Ask Apple, where you can connect directly with Apple experts. Ask about integrating the latest technologies, designing intuitive UIs, testing on beta software, and so much more.
Q&As
Get your questions answered by Apple experts and engage with the developer community through text-based group chats in Slack. We’ll focus on optimizing experiences for new platforms and hardware, from supporting new features like Dynamic Island to migrating to Swift and SwiftUI. Q&As will also be available in Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese.
Apple Search Ads Advanced offers four different ad placements to help you drive visibility and downloads of your app on the App Store:
Today tab
Search tab
Search results
Product pages — while browsing
These placements help you promote your app throughout the App Store user journey. Here’s more information about each placement option:
Today tab ads let you reach people with high-impact creative on the front page of the App Store, where users start their visit. The ad creative for this placement is based on a custom product page you set up in App Store Connect, and must be approved for advertising before your ad can run.
Search tab ads let you reach users before they search for something specific, with an ad that appears prominently at the top of the suggested apps list on the Search tab.
Search results ads let you reach users when they search for something specific, with an ad at the top of relevant search results. To match your ad with potential customers’ search terms, you can choose your own keywords or use the ones we suggest. Matching is based on a direct signal of customers’ intent — their search query.
Product pages — while browsing ads let you reach people while they browse apps on relevant pages across the App Store, whether their journey started on the App Store or from an outside link. When interested users have scrolled to the bottom of relevant product pages, ads appear at the top of the You Might Also Like list.
Below are some additional details on the similarities and differences between ad placements:
Ad Placement Features
Available in 61 countries and regions (including mainland China)
Search results placement only
Available in 60 countries and regions only (except for mainland China)
Today tab, Search tab, and product pages placements
Cost-per-tap pricing model
All placements
Daily budget
All placements
Optional audience settings
All placements
Keywords
Search results placement only
Bid insights
Search results placement only
Custom product page integration
Search results and Today tab placements
Ad variations based on custom product pages
Search results placement only
Recommendations
Search results placement only
Custom reports
All placements
Campaign Management API support
All placements
Apple Ads Attribution API support
All placements
Budget orders
All placements
How ads are created
Ads are created using the metadata and assets you already uploaded in App Store Connect.Search tab and product pages ads feature your app name, icon, and subtitle. Today tab ads are created using a custom product page you set up in App Store Connect. For search results ads, you can create a default ad that’s based on your app’s product page, or you can create ad variations from custom product pages you set up in App Store Connect.
All ads have a blue background and ad disclosure icon.
iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.1, the world’s most advanced mobile operating systems, will soon be available to customers worldwide. Take advantage of Live Activities to help people stay on top of what’s happening live in your app, right from the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island on iPhone. Bring desktop-class features, such as an editor-style navigation bar and enhanced text editing menu to your iPad app, and get the most out of the latest advancements in MapKit, Metal, ARKit, Core ML, and more.
Build your app using Xcode 14.1 Release Candidate, then test and submit it for review. Please note, starting April 2023, all iOS and iPadOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 14.1 and the iOS 16.1 SDK. https://developer.apple.com/ios/submit/
As of this year’s second quarter, more than half of U.S. App Store spending comes from non-game subscription mobile apps, according to mobile tracking firm Sensor Tower.
The quarter was also notable in that it marked the first time the firm’s tracking has shown a decline in overall U.S. consumer spend on apps.
Spending on non-games in the U.S. App Store exceeded that for games for the first time in May. By June, 50.3% of spending came from non-games. That’s up from 23.8% in January 2014.
Five years ago, games accounted for more than two-thirds of total spending in the store. Spending on non-games has grown at more than twice the rate as games, with non-games achieving a compound annual growth rate of 40% since June 2014, compared to less than 20% for games.
The mobile market “has changed drastically from the early days when consumers were less willing to spend on subscriptions or other in-app purchases outside of gaming,” notes the report. “While overall mobile spend in the U.S. has started to slow, spending outside of games has continued to climb rapidly, greatly outpacing the spending growth in mobile games.”
The rise of the subscription model on the App Store and the shift in consumers’ willingness to make purchases on their phones have helped hundreds of apps find success in the U.S.
Four hundred different apps attracted at least $1 million in consumer spending in Q2 2022, with the vast majority relying on subscriptions as their primary in-app purchases. Further, 61 App Store apps had at least $10 million in U.S. consumer spending — more than the number that had $1 million as of Q2 2016. The number of apps achieving $50 million in a quarter has also risen seven times.
Still, after seeing strong growth at least since 2015, overall U.S. spending declined year-over-year for the first time in May 2022, “as the market corrected to the atypically high spend seen in the early months of the pandemic,” explains the report.
Spending spiked in April 2020 at the start of the pandemic. Year-over-year growth jumped from about 20% to 30% in 2019 to 35% to 55% for the next 12 months.
But following the huge spike in mobile spend in 2020, consumers have started to shift spending back to other activities, like travel and restaurant dining.
Nevertheless, U.S. mobile app spending in Q2 was still up 71% compared to pre-pandemic Q2 2019
Effective September 30, 2022 We’re adding new guidelines to our Ads policy to improve the in-app user experience and to prohibit unexpected interstitial ads, inspired by the Better Ads Standards – Mobile Apps Experiences guidelines.
Effective August 31, 2022 We’re updating health misinformation guidelines to state that we don’t allow apps containing misleading health claims that contradict existing medical consensus, or that can cause harm to users.We’re updating our Impersonation policy to clarify that the policy prohibits impersonation of other entities or organizations. We’ve also added some new examples regarding app titles and icons.
Effective September 30, 2022 We’re updating our Subscriptions policy to state that users must be able to easily cancel their subscriptions from within the app.
Effective November 1, 2022 We’re updating our Families Self-Certified Ads SDK Program to require that self-certified ads SDK providers must submit new policy-compliant, self-certified versions and a test app to remain in the Families Self-Certified Ads SDK Program. Learn more about Families Self-Certified Ads SDKs.We’re updating our existing stalkerware guidance with a monitoring apps flag “IsMonitoringTool” for all legitimate monitoring applications. All apps that use this tool must also disclose monitoring or tracking functionality in their Google Play store description.
New examples and clarifications Additionally, we’ve added new examples and clarifications to some of our existing policies. Because these policies aren’t new or updated, our enforcement standards and practices for these policies remain the same.
We’re clarifying our Child Endangerment policy to reinforce that we prohibit the use of apps to endanger children, including the facilitation of child trafficking, grooming, and sextortion.We’re clarifying our Families Data Practices policy to state that apps that solely target children must not transmit Android advertising identifier (AAID), SIM Serial, Build Serial, BSSID, MAC, SSID, IMEI, and/or IMSI. Apps that target both children and older audiences must not transmit AAID, SIM Serial, Build Serial, BSSID, MAC, SSID, IMEI, and/or IMSI from children or users of unknown age.
We’re consolidating health and medical-related policies into an easy-to-navigate page.We’re clarifying our Ads policy to emphasize that ads and their associated offers served in your app must be consistent with your app’s content rating.
We’re clarifying our Ads policy to state that the Ad ID may no longer be connected to a persistent identifier or personally-identifiable information for any purpose including analytics purposes.We’re clarifying the Made For Ads guidelines under our Spam policy to prevent apps from displaying interstitial ads repeatedly to distract users from engaging with an app and performing in-app tasks.
We’re moving country-specific guidelines from our Real-Money Gambling, Games, and Contests policy page to a link on our Gambling Application Form for easier reference.We’re clarifying our sensitive events definition and examples under the Inappropriate Content policy to state that we don’t allow apps that capitalize on or are insensitive toward a sensitive event with significant social, cultural, or political impact (for example, civil emergencies, natural disasters, public health emergencies, conflicts, deaths, or other tragic events).
We’re clarifying Privacy Policy guidelines under our User Data policy to state that all apps must post a privacy policy link in the designated field within Play Console and a privacy policy link or text within the app itself.
Before releasing your app on the App Store for the first time, you can choose to offer it as a pre-order. Customers can see your product page and order your app before it’s released for download. Once your app is released, customers will be notified and your app will automatically download to their device. For paid apps, customers will be charged before download.
Free or paid apps on all Apple platforms are eligible to use this feature. In-app purchases cannot be set up for pre-order, but you can set up your in-app purchases, including promotional metadata, in App Store Connect prior to and during the pre-order period so that everything is ready once your app is released for download. Promoted in-app purchases will not display on your App Store product page until your app is released for download.
To make your app available for pre-order, select the appropriate setting and submit your app, build, and metadata to App Review. After your app is approved, you can publish it as a pre-order on the App Store. Your pre-order will be available in all territories where your app is available.
While your app is available for pre-order, you can update your app by creating and submitting a new version. The new version must be approved before it can be published as a pre-order on the App Store, so be sure to follow the App Review Guidelines. If you submit a version update during the pre-order period, customers will receive the latest version published to the App Store once your app is released for download.
You may also adjust the price of your app during the pre-order period, but keep in mind that if you change pricing, customers will be charged the price that is lower — the price they accepted for pre-order or the price on the day of release.
The app will automatically download to the device on which a customer made the pre-order, and will download to all of a customer’s other devices if the customer has turned on automatic downloads.
Keep in mind that app bundles cannot be made available for pre-order and cannot include apps that are available for pre-order. Apps that are offered for pre-order will not be made available in new app bundles.