Database Reference
In-Depth Information
You need to communicate these limitations very clearly to your creative team, so that
they can start thinking about how to best present the new app. Do they want to have
an independent website that has a more glossy, polished look, with a link to the app
store? Do they want to translate the app store into multiple languages (something
iTunes supports)?
You should also make sure that you all agree on what the application is going to be
called, and make sure that name isn't already in use. If it isn't, it's probably a good idea
to get it trademarked, so that you can prevent someone's flatulence app from appearing
with a similar name.
There's a bit of a delicate dance regarding reserving names in the App Store. Once you
create a new app, you have 90 days to upload a binary into the store, or you lose the
name forever. It's important to note that you don't need to place the app up for sale,
just upload a binary. As will be discussed later in the chapter, it's a good idea to upload
early and often, so this is probably not as much of an issue as it might seem, but it's
important to remember that you may have a window of time where you've picked a
name, but haven't reserved it yet. That's why trademarks can be your friend.
Production Considerations
Ready for your last stop? Find out who controls product ordering and fulfillment, and
set up a meeting. Almost certainly, they have never encountered the kind of sales chan-
nel that iOS apps pass through, and it will require some adjustment on their part.
To begin with, you're going to have to explain to them that the concept of a Gold Master
isn't going to apply to the App Store. In point of fact, there is no physical artifact that
represents the version of the product you upload for sale into the App Store, because
the only way to do it is from inside XCode.
This can lead to some weird circumstances. For example, you may be contractually
required to ship a physical copy of the app to some customers. So what exactly is going
to go on that CD? An Ad Hoc IPA file? They can't use it, since their devices won't be
on the provisioning profile. A copy of the IPA that got uploaded to the App Store?
You can only install those by downloading them directly from the Store. A
README.TXT
file? Believe me, you'd rather get this conversation started early, rather
than be negotiating at the last moment.
Another issue to discuss is how the final production build will be created and uploaded
to the store. It needs (as has been previously mentioned) to be done from XCode, which
means a Mac and someone who knows how to drive it. They almost certainly do not
want you uploading it from your development machine. The accommodation we came
up with was to fire up XCode on the build machine (that runs Hudson), point it at the
directory with the sources for the last successful build, and do an archive and upload
from that.
