Last Chance to Submit a New iPhone App ‘Till New Year's Eve

Developers looking to submit a new iOS binary for review may want to hurry up ironing out those bugs as Apple will stop accepting apps when December 20 is over.

That's today, and the shutdown lasts until December 29, when the company will start accepting new submissions for just a couple of days and then it’s off to the fireworks show.

According to a letter sent out to developers last month, services that will be unavailable during this shutdown are iTunes Connect (as in access to the entire suite of services) and the delivery of any apps or updates.

Releases scheduled to appear on the App Store for the first time will also be delayed, and the same goes for pricing changes scheduled through the interval pricing system in iTunes Connect.

Developers wishing to update an existing piece of software will have until December 22 to do so.

In the letter sent to devs in November, Apple also said, “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.”

The company does not recommend that developers schedule any apps to go live during the shutdown.

The Cupertino, California tech giant stresses that if you schedule a release with a sales start date between this timeframe, your app will not go live until December 29.

Of course, if Apple has one too many submissions to approve just ahead of New Year’s Eve, your app may even have to wait until next year.

In other words, developers who’ve been slacking off will need to pull their act together if they want a piece of this year’s holiday sales.

Last year’s statistics showed that even the most mediocre-selling apps saw their downloads rate increase by a factor of 6 on, or around Christmas. If you think highly of yours, we suggest you access iTunes Connect today.