Journey to App - Part 8 - Publishing and Monetizing your App

The big day is here ...
Coding ... Done
Graphics ... Done
Testing ... Done

So let publish the App!  The actual process to publish the App to Apple is pretty straight forward, but there are several steps, and everything must line up or, you will have to redo it.

All Apps that are sold on the App Store must be digitally signed with a production certification and provisioned with a distribution provision.  You can create both in the developer console at http://developer.apple.com.  You also need an application bundle (also created in developer console).  The application bundle identifier is a unique name for your app.  Typically, you use a reverse domain format, so for our app, the bundle identifier is com.snackableapps.gopdf.

Armed with these items, you can tell the App Store that you want to publish an App.  Log into the app store at http://itunesconnect.apple.com, select Manage my Apps, and then create a new App.

You will need some screenshots of the app from an iPhone as well as an iPad.  You will also need a large version of your app icon.  After you answer a few questions about your app (category, rating, cryptography, description etc), you can save your App and Apple will indicate that it is "Ready for Upload".

Do a final production Build in XCode (or Titanium Studio if using Appcelerator) an go to the XCode Archives.   Your App should show up.  When you select your app, you will have the choice of Validate or Upload.  You should validate first.  I typically find a problem or two (this time it was missing an icon).  Correct, re-build, and re-validate.

Once your App passes validation, you can upload it.  It then goes into the Apple queue "Waiting for Review"  This typically takes about a Week.  Check out  http://appreviewtimes.com/ for updates on how long reviews are taking.

Now a big question when you publish the App is "Free or Paid"?

There are 5 typical approaches to monetizing your app

1. Paid: Users pays at the time of purchase.
2. In App Upgrade: Users buys limited version and can upgrade if they want the app
3. Ad-Supported: Display Ads to the users and get paid for the number of apps shown and clicked
4. Free: enough said
5. Freemium: Used for games, where a user can purchase "perishable" items for the game, like currency or upgrades or items.

Since Go PDF is a productivity utility, and since our functionality is pretty straight forward in this version, the two viable options are Paid and Ad-Supported.

Hmmm ... since this is an educational focused blog series, lets do both.  The first release will be as a Paid App ... $0.99, which should be in the "impulse buy" range.  After a month or so (and we incorporate an ad engine, we will release a Free Ad-Supported version.  I'll keep track and post the information to see how the two Apps do.

So ... We're done? Right? Wrong!

We are mostly done, but there is a few more topics to cover, and the next one is very important.  In our next post we will cover Marketing and Support.  These are aspects of publishing an app that you need to account for in your plan.

Running Total Hours

Activities

• Final Testing - 1 hour
• Publishing to App Store 0.5 hour

Total to Date: 35 Hours 

Previous Part 7  - Graphic Assets 

Next Part 9 - Marketing and Support