Apple to Lock Down iTunes Connect Over Thanksgiving and Christmas?

[MacRumors]

148Apps.biz reports that Apple appears set to lock down its iTunes Connect interface for App Store developers over both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, preventing developers from logging in to make changes to their applications during those times.

Heard through the grapevine that in addition to the now traditional lock down of the App Store during the week of Christmas, this year we'll see an additional lock down the week of Thanksgiving. These are traditionally very busy weeks for the App Store. And this lockdown presents some interesting challenges to app marketing.

Apple similarly shut down iTunes Connect from December 23rd-28th last year, but a Thanksgiving shutdown would appear to be a change from previous years.

A shutdown around Thanksgiving could cause issues for App Store developers looking to launch Black Friday promotions, although with developers now able to schedule price changes in advance, they may still be able to launch sales over the holiday lockdowns if they plan ahead.

The report from 148Apps.biz notes, however, that Apple's lists of top apps typically freeze during these lockdown periods, meaning that apps going on sale during the lockdown would not be able to ride the momentum of a rapid rise through the top app lists. Consequently, developers may look to strategize ways to have their apps ranked as high as possible just as the lockdown goes into effect, locking in that high ranking for the duration of the high-sales periods.

Article Link: Apple to Lock Down iTunes Connect Over Thanksgiving and Christmas?

 

[Buschmaster]

I think this is overstated as we can set future sales beginning and end dates without any issue.

Apple deserves time off, too

 

[LastLine]

I think this is overstated as we can set future sales beginning and end dates without any issue.

Apple deserves time off, too

Hm, I'm agreed on Christmas - thanksgiving means nothing to me as a UK dev, does everywhere else shut Thanksgiving or not? If so what sort of timescale do we look at.

 

[Buschmaster]

Most places would be closed on Thanksgiving, or will at least have reduced hours.

 

[KindredMAC]

wow dudes... having a plan... it's such a bitch....

Good for Apple!

 

[valkraider]

It is still amazingly flexible. If it were at a brick-and-mortar store with boxed software, the app features and prices would have to be "locked down" months ahead of time and sent out to the stores...

 

[LastLine]

Most places would be closed on Thanksgiving, or will at least have reduced hours.

In that case - fair play say I.

 

[Don Kosak]

This could be bad depending on the timing of iOS 4.2.

If 4.2 comes out right before Thanksgiving, and developers get reports of bugs in there Apps, it would be nice to get a bug fix release out.

No matter how much a developer tests on the beta versions, there are always small differences on the final release with real end-user data sets.

 

[iPadPublisher]

Does anyone know if this has any effect on other areas of iTunes Connect such as the music store and iBooks? Have they locked down music in the same fashion, before? Just curious...

 

[yayitsezekiel]

This could be bad depending on the timing of iOS 4.2.

If 4.2 comes out right before Thanksgiving, and developers get reports of bugs in there Apps, it would be nice to get a bug fix release out.

No matter how much a developer tests on the beta versions, there are always small differences on the final release with real end-user data sets.

I didn't think of that....yikes!

 

[Scottapotmas]

Sorry to ask... (but here in aus we don't celebrate) but which day is thanksgiving this year?

"In the United States, Thanksgiving Day falls on the fourth Thursday of November." Quote Wikipedia

Is that the 25th for the US?

 

[caseyh]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Yes, Thanksgiving is Nov 25th in the US.

 

[helpinghand]

Thanksgiving - The answer

Look for an early rollout of the MAC store.

 

[dali3]

I seem to recall a similar rumor last year at around Christmas?