Release Date for Updates

For the first question. NEVER set the update to a future date. If you set the release date to a future date... your app will immediately be put off the market, regardless of when the update is approved. The app will come back on, on the release date... if your app update is approved by then, then when it comes back on, it will be the new version that will be on the market... otherwise it will be the old version... but no version of the app will be on the app store until the release date...

For the second question, suppose you've set the date for the 20th... the app isn't approved until the 27th... on the 27th, you receive the ready for sale email... I've heard here on TA that you have a few hours to set the release date to the 27th... if you do that I believe you'll be on the new release list... otherwise you won't...

 

Why can't Apple just set the updated date for us? Is that so complicated to do?

 

That's exactly how it used it work. They stopped doing that a year ago though.

 

I've just submitted the first update for our game. We are located in Finland, which is 10 hours ahead of California time. When the "ready for sale" email arrives, should the release date be set to today according to our local date or Cupertino date? For example, if we receive (or read) the email at 8 in the morning on the 22nd, it is still the 21st in California. So should we set the release date to 22nd or 21st?

Also, is the window for setting the date really only few hours? That would suck for us on this side of the planet, because most of the Californian working hours are our favorite sleeping hours...

 

I'm based in the UK, and my updates have tended to be approved when I was out in the evening. I think the window is more than a few hours, I've tended to change the date the following morning and the change has always gone through.

 

Not sure... I'd go by California time... so I'd set it to the 21st...

Not really sure how long the window is...