Publishing Insights- A checklist

Wow. What a hell of a few weeks.

 

The app was, admittedly, rudimentary before I finished this last update. Initially, my intent for the app was to select the chords custom to be shuffled - the whole "basic, intermediate, advanced" thing was a workaround because I hadn't the slightest clue how to program that. After some meetings with a Thunkable rep and some surprising thinkwork on my end, the Custom button is finished.

The entire reason I went on this rabbit hole was because I needed to factor in this website. I wasn't able to do so until I had a review and approval from Apple's team, which can take days or a week sometimes. I had already begun the new update when I ran into this roadblock so I needed to finish it entirely before I could re-submit, as I had no way to go back to the initial version. In Thunkable, once you start editing, it's pretty set in stone. No "Undo". 

So it took some weeks, meetings, and a big pause on marketing because people were downloading the app and ads weren't monetizing. Then, on Tuesday, I finally had everything up but I still had a subtle feeling like it wasn't all over yet. 

 Log into Admob, their bot crawled the site, approved! Yes! Thennnnn...... they're like "Oh, btw, you need to re-upload it to be GDPR compliant" so I'm sitting here like "fuckin' hell". 

 Hey. I love that EU users get a choice. That's great and I think America could learn a thing or two. But I wish, when I had bought my Thunkable advanced plan, there was a PDF right as you begin your first project which said 

 

 Things to consider before publishing: 

Apple

- They will reject your screenshots if they don't meet the exact requirements. 

- Editing anything on your app will require a whole new update.

- Put your name in the "Copyright" box, which is located 

- You only need 1 app specific password 

- Your app needs to run through anonymous testing before being placed in the "Review" que.  You add them in under "Testflight" then the + symbol under Groups. They can (and will) reject your app

 

Android 

- Find 12 testers to help your app be approved by the PlayStore. They need to be committed to the 14 day period of testing. 

- You can only test 1 app at a time 

- Do your payment profile verification first. Issues result in app removal 

- Do a closed test! 

- If your app is paid, generate promo codes for testers if you want them to test for free  

 

Admob/General 

- Build a simple website containing an ads.txt so Admob will approve your ads

- After approval, GDPR stuff comes up. You'll need a button to inform users that they can revoke the ads upon opening the app. Button must be visible and easy to access

- There are websites to help you generate screenshots for iPads (I used HotPot AI. Sorry not sorry)

 

That's what I can remember off the top of my head. Thunkable provides a wealth of forums with this knowledge, but I wasn't gonna read a novel before embarking on my idea. Hats off to whoever does that, but it would've taken just as long to prepare for all the roadblocks I would encounter than it did to just face them head on. 

 

Baby's up. Cheers

-B 

 

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