Apple Reminds Developers of App Store Freeze During Holidays

[MacRumors]

Apple has sent reminders to App Store developers that the annual shutdown of iTunes Connect is scheduled to take place from Friday, December 21, 2012 to Friday, December 28th, 2012.

iTunes Connect is the portal for developers to submit app updates and changes. As a result, no new apps, app updates or price changes will be reflected in the App Store during that time.

We strongly recommend that you do not schedule any pricing changes in iTunes Connect that would take effect between Friday, December 21, 2012 and Friday, December 28, 2012. Pricing changes scheduled to take effect during this date range will not be reflected on the App Store and your app or In-App Purchase will become unavailable for purchase until after the shutdown.

We also recommend that you do not schedule any apps to go live during the shutdown. Releases scheduled with a start date between Friday, December 21, 2012 and Friday, December 28, 2012 will not go live on the App Store until after the shutdown.

As a result of the shutdown deadline, a large number of App developers have been cutting prices today as they compete for top ranking on the App Store Top Charts during the lucrative Christmas sales period.

Article Link: Apple Reminds Developers of App Store Freeze During Holidays

[johnkountz]

I run a small Software Development Company, we have three (3) App's in the Apple Store.

We are receiving reports that Customers are unable to make InApp purchases, our in-house tests have verified this to be the case. We had no price changes, app updates, or InApp changes for two weeks, so there's nothing we did to cause this.

At the same time, we are unable to Manage our Customer feedback and Sales information, we've been locked out of iTunes Connect so we can't see what Sales we are having. This was definitely NOT the case last year, we checked sales on a daily basis.

Oh how we miss you Steve Jobs

[Dewroo]

App store app freeze = end of the world.
you see, the app store won't come back. ever. there will be a catastrophic problem and all apps will be deleted off apple's servers.

apple will lose stock and go bankrupt.

[LagunaSol]

Bring on the annual massive holiday app sale!

[gmanist1000]

Good time for them to fix the slow App Store with iOS 6! Though, I doubt they will.

[Sixtafoua]

Can we still get daily reports or is the whole thing down for that week?

[rmwebs]

Still baffles me that Apple cant afford to keep it open. I'm pretty sure there would be a fair few review staff that would be happy to keep working, especially any that dont celebrate anything this time of year.

----------

Originally Posted by Sixtafoua

Can we still get daily reports or is the whole thing down for that week?

You cant even log in. It's completely shut down for the week. Here's the full email as MR dont seem to be showing it:

iTunes Connect will be temporarily shut down from Friday, December 21, 2012 to Friday, December 28, 2012. During this shutdown, the following functionality will be unavailable:

Access to iTunes Connect and iTunes Connect Mobile
Delivery of any apps or updates
Additionally, the following will be delayed:

Releases scheduled to appear on the App Store for the first time
Pricing changes scheduled through the interval pricing system in iTunes Connect
We strongly recommend that you do not schedule any pricing changes in iTunes Connect that would take effect between Friday, December 21, 2012 and Friday, December 28, 2012. Pricing changes scheduled to take effect during this date range will not be reflected on the App Store and your app or In-App Purchase will become unavailable for purchase until after the shutdown.

We also recommend that you do not schedule any apps to go live during the shutdown. Releases scheduled with a start date between Friday, December 21, 2012 and Friday, December 28, 2012 will not go live on the App Store until after the shutdown.

[OriginalMacRat]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

Still baffles me that Apple cant afford to keep it open. I'm pretty sure there would be a fair few review staff that would be happy to keep working, especially any that dont celebrate anything this time of year.

Apple isn't shutting off the app stores.

They just won't be reviewing any new apps or updated apps while the employees are on vacation.

[Bubba Satori]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

Still baffles me that Apple cant afford to keep it open.

Why? Apple has to shut the store down for hours when they only update one product.

Maybe they should buy Amazon and be able to dynamically update millions of products in real time.
Back to the future.

[Tankmaze]

Originally Posted by Sixtafoua

Can we still get daily reports or is the whole thing down for that week?

the daily reports will be down the whole week.. which is shucks, wonder why apple can't create automated reporting for the reports

[troop231]

Glad my updates got approved today before the week long shutdown.