App Store Listing

Your App Store listing provides users with crucial information about your iOS digital product. You’ll need to provide Apple with details about your iOS app, so Apple can create your listing and make your iOS app publicly available in the App Store.

To help you efficiently navigate the process of creating and updating your app listing, we’ve separated listing specifications into two categories—app information and version information. App information is generally consistent across updates and rarely changes. Version information, on the other hand, can and likely will change each time you release a new version of your product.

Read on for details about each category and the requirements for your app listing.

App Information

App Name

Your app’s name appears at the top of your app listing and is limited to 30 characters. Your app name can be longer than the relatively limited text beneath your app’s icon on a user’s home screen. 

Icon

Many elements go into an app’s icon during the app design process to make sure it’s memorable. Work with your app development partner or review Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines to help you guide your icon’s design.

Subtitle

The subtitle appears beneath your app’s name throughout the App Store in a smaller font. Some clients use the subtitle space to insert a tagline. Subtitles must also be 30 characters or less.

Content Rights

Apple requires applicants to demonstrate their legal right to leverage third-party commercial content (such as art and music). Therefore, teams should be prepared to provide this documentation even though the App Store listing does not include it. 

In-App Purchases

If your product includes in-app purchases such as content or features, you’ll configure them in App Store Connect. You may need your development team’s input to complete this task because they may have to implement some app code and configuration changes. 

Categories

You’ll need to choose primary and secondary categories for your app. Your selections will come from the following options: Books, Business, Developer Tools, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Food & Drink, Games, Graphics & Design, Health & Fitness, Kids, Lifestyle, Magazines & Newspapers, Medical, Music, Navigation, News, Photo & Video, Productivity, Reference, Shopping, Social Networking, Sports, Stickers, Travel, Utilities, and Weather.

Note: If your app is specifically for kids ages 11 and under, select the “Made for Kids” checkbox to indicate a particular categorical case.

Localization

For apps that have different languages, you can localize various elements of your listing details for each of the markets where your app is offered. These elements include your app description, keywords, app previews, and screenshots. Other localization features include translating your app’s name and targeting keywords to local audiences.

Primary Language

Your product’s primary language is used as the default for App Store metadata when you don’t provide localized information.

Age Rating

The age rating is the minimum age for which your app is deemed appropriate. You won’t provide an age rating directly. Instead, you’ll answer a series of questions about topics that are not suitable for all ages, such as violence and profanity. Apple will then assign an appropriate age rating based on your responses.

License Agreement

You may provide your own license agreement or adopt Apple’s policy by default.

Pricing & Availability

Your pricing and availability selections are part of your App Store properties. You can establish tiered pricing (e.g., free, $0.99, $1.99, etc.) and determine which countries should make your app available. When you set pricing, you also specify the effective date for your pricing to change.

App Privacy

One of the newer features of app listing requirements is what’s known as the security “nutrition label,” which helps users better understand your app’s privacy practices before they download it. Your listing landing page will include a label detailing some of the types of data your app collects and whether it’s linked to or will track the user. We cover the required privacy information to submit new apps and app updates in-depth here. 

App Store Listing: Version Information

App Previews 

App previews are an optional way to visually communicate your app’s user experience. App previews are short videos that show your app in action, and you can include up to three of them. They must be between 15 to 30 seconds in length and no more than 500 MB in size.  The supported file formats are MOV, M4V,  and MP4. Apple automatically makes the 5-second mark your poster frame, which is the image that displays to customers on the App Store, but you can edit it when your app status is editable.

For iOS apps, you can upload app preview videos in either landscape or portrait mode. When the user plays your video, the app preview will rotate to the native orientation.

Required Dimension

Supported Formats

Screenshots for iPhone

While app previews aren’t required, screenshots are. You’ll need to provide between 1 and 10 screenshots for your app. For iPhone apps, Apple requires teams to provide screenshots for 6.5 inch screens (iPhone 13 Pro Max, 12 Pro Max, 11 Pro Max, 11, XS Max, and XR) and 5.5 inch screens (iPhone 8 Plus, 7 Plus, and 6s Plus). The images you provide will scale down for smaller device sizes.

Your screenshots must meet specific pixel dimensions to satisfy Apple’s requirements for iPhone devices. The required pixel dimensions for 6.5 inch screens are 1284 x 2778 pixels in portrait or 2778 x 1284 pixels in landscape and 1242 x 2688 pixels in portrait or 2688 x 1242 pixels in landscape. The required pixel dimensions for 5.5 inch screens are 1242 x 2208 pixels in portrait or 2207 x 1242 pixels in landscape).

Apple gives teams the option to provide specific screenshots for 5.8 inch screens (iPhone 13 Pro, 13, 13 mini, 12 Pro, 12, 12 mini, 11 Pro, XS, and X) as well as 4.7 inch screens (iPhone SE 3rd and 2nd generation and iPhone 8, 7, 6s, and 6). If your team does not submit screenshots for smaller screens, then Apple will scale your 6.5 and 5.5 inch screenshots.

Some teams can access specific devices that produce screenshots with the required size dimensions. These applicants can simply capture images and upload them to App Store Connect. However, some teams don’t have this capability. In this case, it may be easiest to take representative screenshots on whatever device you have and then lean on our team to capture the shots using an iOS Simulator, which allows us to meet the specifications of any iPhone model.

Furthermore, most App Store screenshots show the edge-to-edge UI of your app. However, some clients prefer to reduce the image size, insert it into a phone frame, and possibly add some promotional or instructional text around the images. If you choose to further customize your screenshots in any of these ways, keep the following additional requirements in mind:

• The frame of the mobile device pictured must be an iPhone.
• Users must only see their own iPhone model’s frame. For example, when users see your app’s listing on their iPhone 13 Pro Max, you can’t present them with screenshots showing the frame of an iPhone 11. You’ll need to produce a set of images for all of the screen sizes (6.5, 5.8, 5.5, and 4.7 inches) with the appropriate model frame.

One last thing to keep in mind: if there are any mobile devices pictured in your screenshots—for instance, a stock photo of a model holding a phone on your login page—then the mobile products shown must be Apple devices. If your iOS app includes an image of an Android phone, your app will likely be rejected in the review process.

Screenshots for iPad

If your app runs on iPad, must provide screenshots for a 12.9 inch device (iPad Pro 4th, 3rd, and 2nd generation). Images for other screen sizes are optional, including 11 inch devices (iPad Pro, Air 5th and 4th generation, and mini 6th generation), 10.5 inch devices (iPad Pro and Air, 9th 8th, and 7th generation), and 9.7 inch devices (iPad and mini).

If you don’t want Apple to auto-scale the 12.9 inch versions, you can provide additional screenshots. We also recommend additional screenshots if you plan to insert app images into a device frame instead of taking screenshots natively.

We’ve listed all of the dimensions below in portrait format—simply reverse them for landscape:

• 12.9” Screenshots (Required): 2048 x 2732 pixels and 2048 x 2732 pixels
• 11” Screenshots: 1488 x 2266 pixels, 1668 x 2388 pixels, and 1640 x 2360 pixels
• 10.5” Screenshots: 1668 x 2224 pixels 
• 9.7” Screenshots: 1536 x 2008 pixels without status bar, 1536 x 2048 pixels with status bar, 768 x 1004 pixels without status bar, and 768 x 1024 pixels with status bar

Other Types of Version Information

Description

Your app description of the features and benefits of your app can be up to 4,000 characters.

Promotional Text

Use promotional text for special occasions or to draw attention to something unique. This optional content appears above the description in the App Store. Promotional content is one of the few things that you can update without a new review. Apple limits promotional text to 170 characters or less.

Keywords

Keywords don’t appear in the listing but are used to improve search results in the App Store. You’ll provide a comma-separated list of words. Keep in mind that commas between words count toward your 100-character limit.

What’s New

This property is not available for the first version of the app but is required for all subsequent versions. Limited to 4,000 characters, it’s a description of the changes in this version of the app such as new features, UI improvements, or bug fixes. 

Support URL

Provide a support URL link to the page on your website where users can find customer help and resources for your app.

Marketing URL

Submit an optional marketing URL link to a page on your website where users can find product information about your app.

App Review Contact Information

Provide contact information including the name, phone number, and email address of the person Apple can reach if they have questions during the review process. In our more than 14 years of developing App Store listings, we’ve never been contacted using these methods. All of our review feedback has come through a dedicated channel within App Store Connect for review-related communication.

App Review Notes

If you need to give the reviewer special instructions for using features of the app, include them in your review notes. Only include details that are less obvious to someone picking up the app for the first time.

Authentication Details

Create authentication details (typically a username and password) for the reviewer if login is required for your app. If your app uses something other than a username and password, provide these details in the App Review notes. If an Apple team member can’t sign in, then your review will stop until the issue is resolved.

Note: Be sure that you can authenticate these credentials in your production environment before submitting a new build for review.

Attachment

You can submit an attachment in a wide variety of formats to support your submission. While teams may submit attachments as images, PDFs, and other formats, our clients most frequently submit videos for their reviews. Videos are necessary for at least two of the following common circumstances:

1. You can’t provide Apple with a live test account in your production environment. This is the case for some of our financial clients.
2. Your app integrates with hardware that the reviewer can’t access. If this describes your situation, then it is important to record a video that shows your app running on a phone and communicating with its associated hardware at the same time. The reviewer needs to see, for instance, that when you tap a button in your app’s UI, the light on the hardware turns green.

In both cases, it’s crucial to demonstrate the core functionality of your app. However, teams certainly don’t need to demonstrate every possible use case. We recommend you keep your video to 2 minutes or less. Remember the reviewer can pause and rewind as needed, so you can fly through your demo. You don’t need to narrate it either unless you think your app has a specific feature that requires an explanation. This situation is rare.

Additional Resources

Optimizing your App Store listing to meet all necessary guidelines and effectively showcase your app’s unique features and benefits is crucial. In a competitive market, a well-crafted listing can make all the difference in attracting potential customers. By entrusting your app to a reputable professional app developer, you can rest assured that it will receive the attention and care it deserves, helping you to achieve your goals and reach a wider audience.