Programming iOS 6, 3rd Edition

Submission to the App Store

Before submitting your app to the App Store, build it (Product → Archive) and test it as an Ad Hoc build. The archived build that appears in the Organizer window can be used to generate either an Ad Hoc build or an App Store build. You can’t test an App Store build, so you use this archived build to generate an Ad Hoc build and test with that. When you generate the App Store build, you use this same archived build; it is the exact same binary, so you are guaranteed that its behavior will be exactly the same as the build you tested. (That is one of the purposes of archiving.)

When you’re satisfied that your app works well, and you’ve installed or collected all the necessary resources, you’re ready to submit your app to the App Store for distribution. To do so, you’ll need to make preparations at the iTunes Connect website. You can find a link to it on the iOS developer pages when you’ve logged in at Apple’s site. You can go directly to http://itunesconnect.apple.com, but you’ll still need to log in with your iOS Developer username and password.

Note

The first time you visit iTunes Connect, you should go to the Contracts section and complete submission of your contract. You can’t offer any apps for sale until you do, and even free apps require completion of a contractual form.

I’m not going to recite all the steps you have to go through to tell iTunes Connect about your app, as these are described thoroughly in Apple’s iTunes Connect Developer Guide, which ...