The successful submission of an application to the Apple App Store doesn’t mean that you iOS app will immediately be published. First, Apple reviews each app’s content, malware, and so on. As opposed to the Google Play Store, Apple does this traditionally by hand – in the past, it took an average of one week for an iOS app to become available in the App Store. But Apple has done a good job to drastically reduce this processing time: Now, the review process generally takes around two days. However, this process can’t really be generalized – the more objections Apple has to an application, the longer the process will take.
The current status of the review can be checked at any time in iTunes Connect. In the “My Apps” section of the menu, you can find information about the status of the app under “iOS App” on the left-hand side. Even after your app is published in the App Store you should keep this in mind for the future. App crashes and programming errors are among the factors that can hinder the success of an app - only a properly functioning app can be successful. The Apple Developer account and Xcode can help to minimize errors, since they allow you to view certain “crash reports” sent to Apple. However, you’ll only be informed of error messages from users who have given consent for their reports to be transmitted to the app developers. Ratings in the App Store can also help you understand what problems users are having with your app.
If you locate and fix app errors, then you should publish a new version of your iOS app in the store. You can do this by uploading a new build file to iTunes Connect. In this way, you simply use the same app entry with which you’ve already published the previous versions of your application – which ensures that your app retains the same app ID and all other features. But it’s still possible to change the definition and whatever metadata you want.
Besides updating your app, you should also consider App Store optimization (ASO). This is an effective means for placing an application more prominently in the App Store. The last chapter of our app article series delves into this topic: The first subchapter will discuss the improvement of app ranking in the Google Play Store, and the second part will cover the same topic for applications in the Apple App Store. Better visibility in the app stores increases an application’s download figures and should not be underestimated when it comes to the marketing of an app.
A study, in which the app analyst Adjust evaluated almost 2 million iOS Apps, revealed that almost 90% of all smartphone applications can only be found via the direct search function and are therefore considered as "zombie apps", as shown on the infographic below.