Apple has sent out their customer note to app developers that iTunes Connect, the web-based backend for managing app submission, updating, and reporting, will once again shut down for a week.

iTunes Connect will be temporarily shut down from Thursday, December 22 to Thursday, December 29 for the winter holidays.

During this shutdown, the following functionality will be unavailable:

• Access to iTunes Connect
• The delivery of any apps or updates
• Additionally, the following will be delayed:
• Releases scheduled to appear on the App Store for the first time
• Pricing changes scheduled through the interval pricing system in iTunes Connect

We strongly recommend that you do not schedule pricing changes through the interval pricing system in iTunes Connect that would take effect from December 22 through December 29. Pricing changes scheduled to take effect during this date range will not be reflected in the App Store and the app will become unavailable for purchase.

We also recommend that you do not schedule any apps to go live during the shutdown. Releases scheduled with a sales start date between these dates will not go live until after the shutdown.

Last year this resulted in week-long app sales for users, as developers wanted to lock in deals for the holidays.

Apple has announced a few new features for iTunes Connect, their back-end iPhone and iPad app management portal, in an effort to provide better management and reporting for developers.

New Metadata Rejected App Review Status: You can now resolve metadata issues that have been identified by the App Review team without having to recompile and resubmit a new binary for review.

App Bundle IDs Now Editable Before Binary Submission: You can now edit your app’s assigned Bundle ID in iTunes Connect as long as you have not submitted a new binary for review and your app is not using Game Center or the iAd Network.

Also added is a new auto-ingest tool for easier, automated retrieval of daily and weekly reports.

The auto-ingest tool is a Java-based script that will run on any operating system that supports Java 1.6 or later. Before you begin using the tool, we strongly urge you to read the App Store Sales and Trends Guide and note the following:

• Use of this tool is monitored.
• If your system will be set up to automatically pull daily or weekly reports, allow 15-minute intervals between pulls.

More information is available inside Apple’s iOS developer portal.

[Thanks Jack!]

Apple has sent out a note to developers telling them they can now peddle their iTunes App Store wares in an additional 33 countries, namely:

Algeria, 
Angola, 
Anguilla, 
Antigua and Barbuda, 
Azerbaijan, 
Bahamas
, Bahrain, 
Barbados, 
Belarus, 
Belize, 
Bermuda, 
Bolivia, 
British Virgin Islands, 
Brunei
, Cayman Islands, 
Cyprus, 
Dominica, 
Ghana, 
Grenada
, Guyana
, Iceland, 
Montserrat, 
Nigeria, 
Oman
, St. Kitts and Nevis, 
St. Lucia
, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, 
Suriname, 
Tanzania, 
Trinidad and Tobago
, Turks and Caicos, 
Uzbekistan, 
Yemen

I believe Apple previously announced the App Store in 90 countries, so this would make 123. It will be interesting to see what type of app availability (especially games, which still aren’t available in some existing countries due to local ratings and content rules). It will also be interesting to see, in light of how much money Apple is making internationally, whether any of their competitors will start raising their own outside-the-US-of-A games.

Apple has sent out a note to developers advising them that iTunes Connect, the back end interface for managing App Store apps, will be down for maintenance on Wednesday, July 13 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT. They also warn that some countries will lose App Store access, and price changes might cause apps to temporarily become unavailable.

During this time, iTunes Connect will still be available. However, pricing changes made between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. PDT will cause the app to become unavailable for purchase until maintenance is complete, at which point the app will become available at the new price. To avoid interruptions to the availability of your apps, do not make price changes during this time.

Lastly, customers may not be able to purchase apps in the Mexico, U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Japan or Norway storefronts during the scheduled maintenance.

Everything should be back to normal following the maintenance, and it’s not difficult to imagine Apple’s new OS X Lion launch for the Mac might be nicely set up soon thereafter.

iTunes Connect is closing for the holidays tomorrow — from Thursday, December 23 to Tuesday, December 28 to be exact — and that means there won’t be any new iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad apps, games, or updates next week.

iTunes Connect is the portal developers use to submit and manage their apps. So the shutdown might be just to give Apple’s review team a holiday of their own or it could give Apple time to do some system maintenance and improvements behind the scenes. Either way come tomorrow all the apps and games in the store will be locked down until just before New Year.

(Yes, that’s also why so many apps and games are on sale now — they can’t change prices until after iTunes Connects opens again, and they’re hoping a sale bumps them up in the rankings for all those new iPhone and iPads under the tree!)

We here at TiPb are used to getting a steady stream of new apps and games to keep us busy so I’m not even going to lie, it’s going to be hard week. How about you? Is it going to feel strange going to the App Store and seeing nothing changed and nothing new?

EA recently lowered the price of roughly 70 of their iPhone and iPad App Store games to $0.99, now Gamevil has as well and soon other will join them as the holiday iTunes Connect deadline fast approaches, more may follow. Mike Schramm from TUAW explains why:

Apple is freezing the charts on December 23rd, which means that any games in the top 200 at that time will remain there over the all-important Christmas holiday, the point at which we’ve seen the biggest jumps in App Store sales (due to all the new hardware out there under the tree).

So when everyone gets their brand new iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and heads over to the App Store to get their game on, those top selling, top free, and top grossing leaderboards are going to be marketing gold.

Now who’s next?

[TUAW]

Apple’s newly renamed iOS Developer News feed has released two notes today, one on exciting new features in iTunes connect, and the other announcing iAd for Developers — a great way to promote apps, in apps.

iTunes connect is gaining the following:

• Using the new Version Release Control to choose when your new app version goes live on the App Store;
• Delivering binaries using Application Loader;
• New states for your app including Prepare for Upload, Pending Developer Release, and Processing for App Store;
• UI Enhancements that indicate when you can edit your app information;
• Game Center functionality for the setup of Achievements and Leaderboard Categories for sandbox testing purposes.

You’ll find the iTunes Connect Developer Guide available for download on the homepage of iTunes Connect.

And for developers who want to get a little more attention for their apps:

The new iAd for Developers program is a great way for you to advertise your own apps to millions of users across the iAd Network. When a user taps on an ad for your app, they can download it from the App Store without leaving the app they’re in.

It’s easy to get started. Learn more about how you can drive more customers to your app with iAd for Developers.

Any devs out there liking either or both of these updates?

[iOS Developer News]

Apple has sent out a notice to developers advising them that the iTunes App Store has begun accepting iOS 4 binaries for submission and review:

Submit your iOS 4 apps for review so they can be ready for sale when iOS 4 is available to iPhone and iPod touch users. Make sure you have built and tested your applications using iOS 4 and iPhone SDK 4 GM seed, which you can download from the iPhone Dev Center.

Log in to iTunes Connect and upload your iOS 4 applications today.

iOS 4 is scheduled for release on June 21, once again developers aren’t likely to get much sleep, especially if trying to once again implement new features for a device they don’t have and can’t yet test.

(The effort is much appreciated.)

Apple has released iTunes Connect Developers Guide 5.5, with updated information on the iPad and iTunes connect features. Developers can download it via the iTunes Connect home page. (Here’s the direct PDF link). Updates include:

• iPad screenshots, icon and delivery requirements as well as details on a new status called Missing Screenshot;
• Details on how to enable your app for Game Center and set up your Leaderboard to test using iPhone SDK 4 beta;
• Interval pricing details to help you learn how to schedule price tier changes in advance for your apps and in app purchases;
• Information on the Over the Air download limit;
• Recommended app name character count for optimal display on desktop and device App Stores.

For non developers, we’ll just drool over the impending Game Center integration you’ll all be bringing us later this year…

[iPhone Developer News]

An email has been sent out to developers telling them Apple is now accepting application submissions for the iPad App Store — a special category of the existing iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPod touch. 9to5Mac has the text:

iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today. Submit your iPad app now for an initial review by the App Review Team and receive feedback on its readiness for the grand opening. Submit Your App by March 27.

• Build and test your iPad app using iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 5 available on the iPhone Dev Center. Only iPad apps built with iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 5 will be accepted for this initial review.

• Upload your distribution signed app through iTunes Connect by Saturday, March 27, 5pm PDT.

• The App Review Team will review your app on iPad and email you details about the readiness of your app.

• You will also receive additional information about submitting your app for final review before iPad ships.

• Only apps submitted for the initial review will be considered for the grand opening of the iPad App Store.

As TUAW points out, however, there’s some risk involved:

the simulator uses many Macintosh frameworks and libraries, offering features that are not actually present on the iPhone. Applications that appear to be completely operational and fully debugged on the simulator may flake out or crash on the device itself. You simply cannot fully debug any program solely by using the simulator and be assured that the software will run bug-free on the iPhone. Here at TUAW central, we’re assuming (or at least hoping) that Apple will be testing device builds on real devices.

+1 to that. It would no doubt annoy users not to have iPad-specific apps available on April 3. I would annoy them more if those apps crash due to never being tested on, you know, the actual iPad hardware they’re supposed to run on…

Cult of Mac is reporting that Apple has added an “Explicit” category to iTunes Connect, the portal through which developers submit and manage their App Store apps. According to their developer source:

“It’s available for selection when adding a new app to iTunesConnect although I can’t see any sign of it in the actual App Store yet.”

MacRumors says they’ve confirmed the information, so where does this leave us now? Apple removed 5000 sex-based apps last week and stirred up a ton of reaction (cheers and jeers alike), only to come up with an organizational alternative a few days (and hundreds of blogs posts, thousands of tweets and comments) later? If it wasn’t a reconsideration, wouldn’t they have just added the category and reshuffled the apps without all the fuss and muss? Or did they want to force a re-submission to start the new category off with a clean slate?

Either way, hopefully this will include a better ratings implementation to go with it, so parental controls can turn off “explicit” apps without turning off apps that access the web along with them.

What think you?

Apple’s iPhone Developer News feed has announced that the iTunes App Store is now supported in 13 additional countries:

You can now distribute your apps to more customers with the addition of App Store support in Armenia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Jordan, Kenya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, and Uganda. Log in to iTunes Connect to view and update the countries where your applications are available.

This contrasts sharply with other platforms where the various marketplaces and catalogs have very limited international presence (i.e. you can’t buy apps in most countries outside the US). The existing iTunes footprint gave Apple and the iPhone and iPod touch a huge global advantage and it’s nice to see they’re continuing to push it.

Now they — and developers (and licensors in some cases) — just need to make more of the apps available internationally!

As previously announced, the iTunes Connect portal used by developers to upload and manage their App Store apps, is now “closed for the holidays”, and with typical Apple graphical flair it would seem.

Whether that 40+ person review team is getting a break from those 10,000 apps a week, or Eddy Cue is leading an overhaul, we wish everyone at Apple’s iTunes a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous holiday season.

[Via Marco.org]

iTunes Connect, the online portal developers use to upload and manage their App Store apps, appears to be down for the moment.

Apple had previously announced that iTunes Connect would be unavailable over the holidays between Dec. 23 and 28, but did someone jump the gun? Hit the eggnog a wee bit early? Could just be a server down — it is the age of the cloud, after all.

Or is it every developer and their team trying to wedge in some last minute app-tivity before the big close? DDoS by holiday?

If you’re a developer and your iTunes is suddenly won’t-Connect, let us know, and let us know when it’s back up. Otherwise, we guess your holidays start early :-/

[Thanks to @dmackdaddy for the tip!]

Apple’s new iPhone Developer RSS Feed brings world that iTunes Connect now supports Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Swedish language localizations:

With over 50 million users of iPhone and iPod touch in 81 countries around the world, it’s more important than ever to make your app available in a user’s language of choice. You can, and should, create localized versions of your app for each market you sell to. In iTunes Connect, you can customize your app’s metadata, keywords and screenshots for each localized version.

So if you’re in one of those countries, head on over and give your local App Store some linguistic love.

No sooner did Apple get their new iPhone developer-centric RSS feed up and running than they’re used it to announce that iTunes Connect will be unavailable December 23 – 28, 2009:

iTunes Connect, the tool you use to manage your applications and access your reports, will be unavailable from December 23 through December 28, 2009.

Access to iTunes Connect will resume December 29, 2009.

The post is called #holidays, so is this totalitarian Apple trying to force developers to relax a little and enjoy some down time? Are they hoping to give the App Store reviewers the week off? Or will the busy Cupertino elves be doing some re-working behind the scenes? We haven’t heard any rumors of a new iTunes Connect, or new functionality for the New Year, but if Apple can keep chipping away at developer sore spots, it could make for a great 2010…

Speaking of tiny, incremental improvements, Erica Sadun over at TUAW highlight a new addition some developers are seeing when entering iTunes Connect — a submission history:

Appearing near recently reviewed items, this option opens a detail table showing how your application has worked its way through the App Store review process, and on to the shelf. Stormont details this update on his site.

Sadun also states that the amber status bubbles are slightly more verbose now, adding “waiting for review” for the freshest uploads.

If you’re a developer and you’re seeing these, or any other changes in iTunes Connect, let us know, and let us know what you think about them, and what else you’d like to see.

Apple Insider is reporting that iPhone developers have been contacted by Apple and asked:

enter up to 255 characters worth of keywords, separated by commas, which will be used for search in the App Store on the iPhone and iPod touch.

They’re told this must be completed via iTunes Connect “as soon as possible so your application can continue to be successfully located on the App Store”. What, if any measures are in place to prevent more ethically challenged developers from misappropriating key words (i.e. using names of competing products or unrelated yet popular terms) remains to be revealed.

Additionally, Apple Insider says search results have improved in general, a query for “EA” now returning 18 results for Electronic Arts games rather than previous results that included unrelated games using an abbreviation for “each”.

Baby. Steps.

When iTunes 8.2 debuted in prerelease form (for developers running the iPhone 3.0 beta firmware), one of the more exciting features from the back-end perspective was crash logs being made available via iTunes Connect.

Well, Hassan from Inside Redbox Mobile reminded us that, with iTunes 8.2 going into general availability — and into the hands of consumers — developers now have access to the full range of crash logs from their full base of installed customers. Bug. Fixing. Goldmine. (See the Inside Redbox Mobile crash log report, above.)

From the consumer standpoint, the information looks to be as anonymized as anything else sent from iTunes to Apple — Genius info, for example — and in exchange for sharing, users will likely get more stable apps.

Sounds good to us!

[Thanks Hassan!]

Ars Technica reports, with some very nice commentary and screen caps from Equivalence (iTunes link) for iPhone, that:

One of the most requested features from developers, automated crash reports, can now be submitted by users via iTunes 8.2. Developers can access the reports via iTunes Connect.

No code is ever perfect, but anything that helps developers make their apps more solid for more users is certainly appreciated.

The Situation: Developers who signed up for Apple’s iPhone SDK Beta and iTunes Connect program last year are coming up on their 1 year renewal deadline.

The Problem: Apple has no mechanism in place to handle such renewals.

The solution: Er… there is none — yet. But in the meantime, Ars Technica‘s Erica Sadun reports:

Apple has now e-mailed iPhone developers to extend their memberships until July 11, 2009. A short-term solution to the problem is good, but it shows that Apple is still working out the longer-term details.

Here’s hoping them details get worked out soon rather than later.

Almost a year ago, Apple held their iPhone SDK Roadmap Event and unleashed the App Store concept on the world. Developers signed up for iTunes Connect contracts, and now their first year is almost up and they need to renew.

One problem: Apple doesn’t yet have a renewal process in place.

Wha-wha-wha-what? Erica Sadun over at Ars Technica (following an article in Apple Insider) looked into it and found the right side of the Apple didn’t seem to know from the left:

When we explained that we were looking both to renew ADC memberships and to update iTunes Connect contracts, the representative instructed us to send a query to devcontracts@apple.com. [...] We did in fact contact the iTunes Connect e-mail address, who wrote back to us saying, “Please refer to the Contact Us links at the bottom of iTunes Connect. devprograms should be able to assist you.” Apparently 1 Infinite Loop does not just refer to a corporate street address.

Yikes! Hopefully — for the sake of developers and those of us who want to continue seeing apps in the App Store — Apple will sort this right quick.

Any developers manage to get a better answer from Apple?