Launch

Every Launch post from the Kickstart blog, condensed to its key points – skim the bullets, and read the full article when you want the detail.

August 12th, 2026

Roughly 23 in 100: Apple’s 2025 transparency report counts 2,093,244 rejected submissions, with Performance (crashes, bugs, and incomplete apps) the largest category, and 387,087 rejections later approved after fixes.
Boring problems, boring fixes: The top rejection reasons are self-inflicted, so before the day you submit test the actual release build on a real device, try your support and privacy policy links, and log in with your own demo account.
Metadata must be true: Polished apps get rejected for what’s written around them: screenshots must show the real app, and the name and subtitle allow no keyword stuffing, price terms, or other-platform imagery.
Privacy keeps growing: Write privacy request text that explains why you need access, offer in-app account deletion, get explicit consent before sending personal data to third-party AI services, and update any old SDKs so missing privacy manifests.
Reviewers have minutes, not hours: Most developers leave the App Review Information box blank – fill it with demo credentials, what’s new or unusual, and a demo video for anything the reviewer can’t test themselves.
The 30-minute reviewer run: Before submitting, take a moment to try things just like the reviewer will on a clean device – install the release build, complete the core flow as a new user, log in with your demo credentials, restore purchases, delete an account, and trigger every permission prompt.

July 15th, 2026

The 100-day launch: a great launch takes over 100 calendar days – 45 before you ship, launch day itself, and up to 60 after – because cramming all the marketing into day 0 is why most indie launches fail.
Foundations are cheap now: days −45 to −31 are for the decisions – your one-sentence value proposition, your direct and indirect competitors, your three core keywords, your price, and an App Store Connect record to reserve your app name.
Lead times or nothing: days −30 to −15 cover everything that can’t be rushed – App Store metadata, featuring nominations at least three weeks before launch, the external TestFlight beta, and a pre-order submitted with “Manually release this version” so approval doesn’t mean accidental launch.
Prewrite launch day: nothing that can be done in advance happens on day 0, so write the blog post, social posts, and email by day −9 and spend launch day itself replying to every comment and question – the replying is the marketing.
The feedback fortnight: the launch is a window, not a single moment – days +1 to +14 are for logging every piece of feedback, fixing the worst bug, replying to all reviews, shipping 1.0.1, and only then calling requestReview() at a moment of success.
Plan for a year two: aim for a real update every 2–4 weeks, start proper ASO at day +21 once you have real ranking data, and only try Apple Ads once your conversion and lifetime-value numbers show the economics work.

July 13th, 2026

Preorders drove the launch: just shy of 3,000 first-week downloads and a #2 spot in the Mac App Store’s Developer chart came largely from preorders concentrating months of interest into release day – Apple says preorder volume can contribute to early visibility and stronger chart placement.
Long betas pay off: the first TestFlight build went out more than three months before launch, giving the initial release months of fixes behind it and no serious bugs on day one.
Cut the giant feature: the video editor consumed about half of the five months of development and nearly caused burnout – cutting it from v1 would have shipped the app almost three months earlier.
Press outreach can’t wait: the biggest launch mistake was repeatedly deferring press contact until the next feature shipped, leaving the press still uncontacted two months after release.
Users will surprise you: keyword tracking was planned around 20–50 keywords, but some people tracked several thousand, forcing a rebuild with background Swift concurrency, careful queuing, and improved caching.
The launch checklist: put every launch step on the calendar today, split remaining work into “must ship” and “can wait”, write down your procrastination pattern, and decide where feedback will arrive and how you’ll track it.