Publishing an iOS App to App Store

So you heard that Apple is rather picky when it comes to accepting apps in App Store. And indeed, Apple does make it much harder than Google when it comes to publishing apps. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible however. All you will need is patience and, if possible, following the advice of somebody who has done it before. This is what it looks like to upload an iOS to App Store in January 2021.

Both App Store and Play Store require you to purchase a developer license. While Play Store’s license is cheap ($25) and lasts forever, Apple’s one is more expensive ($100), must be renewed every year and the upload process is more complicated. I recommend starting with Play Store, testing the app with some users in the production environment and once everything is ready, move into App Store.

Important! You will need a Mac device or virtual machine to upload the app to App Store. The only way to upload apps is through XCode or Transporter and they both can only be installed in MacOS.

Apple Developer Portal

In order to upload an app to App Store you will first need to create an Apple Developer account in the Apple Developer Portal. Sign in with your Apple ID, fill the enrollment form, pay the $100 registration fee and let’s move on.

You will notice you get asked twice for the same details in the Romanized Contact Information. “Romanized” stands for latin alphabet here, so I guess this section is meant for users who write in non-latin alphabets…