I uploaded an app to my country's app store, and it reached first place in top free in just 2 days!
Well, I am not bragging, since nobody here cares anyway :p
BUT! I think my app deserves to have a picture on the home page (the large image that previews applications in a 600x300 pixel rectangle [the size is approximate :P] )
Where can I include my design in the next update, so apple could see it and consider posting it?
what is the size?
(is my question even clear? :p)
If you have an app that does very well, Apple will contact you and ask that you prepare special images for the App Store homepage. This blog post lists out the specs as of August 31st, 2009.
It looks like you'll need to prepare two images: a 600x600 title treatment, and a 900x530 layered PSD for the background treatment. (This is the file you see rotating around on the app store background.)
From the post:
Title Treatment
This is a 600 x 600 image of your
logo/title. The background should be
transparent and it should exclude
tag-lines if the text will not be
legible at a small scale.
Background Treatment
This is a 900 x
530 layered PSD. What you put in this
file is fairly open. Apple states:
“The background image, texture, color
or gradient should correspond to the
application or compliment the title
treatment. It may include elements of
the application itself, but should not
be or include screenshots.”
EDIT:
I did some searching, and found that these dimensions still apply today, and are listed in Apple's Developer Guide. To find this, go into iTunes Connect and click the Download the Developer Guide link at the bottom of the page. You'll find the information on promotional artwork on pages 173 and 174.
Related
How can I make these kind of pictures?
(Picture 1)
I know you can just take a screenshot, but it looks different:
Even if I don't take the screenshot with iPhone 12 but instead the iPhone SE, it doesn't look like in Picture 1 (unfortunately the iPhone 10 doesn't work because it doesn't suggest for iOS 14.3).
Does anyone have an idea how I can take such a picture?
As #ivanmoskalev said, you need to edit the image yourself (Xcode does not have this functionality built-in). You can look for mockup frames on the internet, but I prefer this app called Rotato.
It's $50 to remove the watermark. But you also get animations and lots of devices. In my opinion, completely worth it.
The realistic device bezel is added later via image manipulation. There is a number of services and scripts that do it.
I personally prefer using templates from Figma Community, there are quite a lot of them:
https://www.figma.com/community/file/891325178364097650
more device mockups
more App Store screenshot templates
Just don't forget to check licensing – whether the template author allows you to use derived images commercially.
Disclaimer: I didn't check for that in the links I posted above, nor do I recommend any particular template.
From Day One I was told that each third-party iOS app was perfectly sand-boxed and therefore there was no way for a third-party app to transfer messages other than some pre-defined urls to another app.
But this Send to Instagram trick done by 100 Cameras in 1 just caught my attention. When the user triggers this action, he jumps from 100 Cameras in 1 to Instagram right away (which is OK and could be easily implemented by the url trick mentioned above.) However, what is interesting is that Instagram will display the image just processed by 100 Camera in 1 as if it was displaying a image from its own sandbox.
I understand that Cocoa Touch must have some APIs to support this. My question is, what are they? Are they only limited to images?
Thanks a lot in advance.
Edited: I understand there's the Cocoa Touch URL scheme thing, but if it's the url scheme that did the trick... the url scheme must contain info of a pointer/reference to the image. Otherwise even if we jump from 100 Cameras in 1 to Instagram, Instagram won't have access to that image.
Edited (2nd time): Though I haven't tried yet, Tom H's answer might finally led to a solution. So I accepted his answer as the final answer. As for unset's answer, unset kept mentioning the url scheme thing (but dude, we all know that. And it's not the switching-between-apps-by-calling-url that confused us. It's how Instagram accessed that image from another app that confused us.) Since unset's answer doesn't provide much useful info and never answered my question to the point, I down-voted his answer, and I suggest those who up-voted adjust your votes accordingly. Stack Overflow is a great place because we could almost always have answers that are to the point, not because there are people who's answers are nothing wrong but are never really to the point.
Edited (3rd time): The official Instagram developer page now gives the official solution.
If your application creates photos and
you'd like your users to share these
photos using Instagram, you can use
the Document Interaction API to open
your photo in Instagram's sharing
flow.
You must first save your file in PNG
or JPEG (preferred) format and use the
filename extension ".ig". Using the
iOS Document Interaction APIs you can
trigger the photo to be opened by
Instagram. The Identifier for our
Document Interaction UTI is
com.instagram.photo, and it conforms
to the public/jpeg and public/png
UTIs. See the Apple documentation
articles: Previewing and Opening Files
and the
UIDocumentInteractionController Class
Reference for more information.
When triggered, Instagram will
immediately present the user with our
filter screen. The image is preloaded
and sized appropriately for Instagram.
Other than using the appropriate image
format, described above, our only
requirement is that the image is at
least 612px tall and/or wide. For best
results, Instagram prefers opening a
JPEG that is 612px by 612px square. If
the image is larger, it will be
resized dynamically.
An important note: If either dimension
of the image is less than 612 pixels,
Instagram will present an alert to the
user saying we were unable to open the
file. It's our current policy not to
upscale or stretch images to our
minimum dimension.
If anyone's interested, here's the actual documentation needed to do such a thing:
http://instagram.com/developer/iphone-hooks/
Instagram has registered the URL scheme instagram:// (type "instagram://something" in your iPhones safari and hit "open"). Maybe your app has discovered the format to send images into Instagram – or Instagram provides a documented API.
For the possible parameters, check this post.
I think what's happening (or what could possibly happen, also thank you Angelo) is first:
100 Cameras in 1 saves the image to Photos.app.
Then, it passes the name/filename/path of the image to Instagram (via the url scheme).
Then, Instagram retrives the photo from Photos.app, and loads it up.
There is probably not a way to do this with things other than images, however if you have a look at the UIDocumentInteractionController class which lets you open files in other apps, to an extent.
Where do you usually grab graphics for your iPhone apps?
Are any free official repos from Apple or one have to buy everything from thirdparty artists?
For example, does anyone know where I can find close button image like one one on this screenshot? Or it is private image?
365psd.com is one of my favorite places to find some brilliantly beautiful interface elements. They give you the PSD, instead of just the PNG, so that you can scale it or modify it to fit your needs. It's like open source for graphic design.
Apple doesn't really provide any images other than the system tab- and bar-button items. Most developers just end up making their own or getting them from third parties, paid or otherwise. A search for “iPhone UI template” might well turn up something like what you're after, probably for free or on reasonable licensing terms.
If you're looking specifically for a “close”/“delete” button, I made one a while ago, though it looks more like the system one than the one in the image you posted; you're free to use it if you like.
Find icons and icon finder is great resource to find different UI icon and graphics for apps
I am doing an app with both static and changing information/graphics. The logo and purpose stay the same, but the graphics and text will change continuously on 1 skin. Does that matter at all? Feel free to just point me to a link that explains this better. I haven't been able to find it in the iphone devel. guide thus far.
You cannot change the name, icon, default images, or any executable or interpreted code (other than Javascript run in a UIWebView) in an iOS app without re-submittal. If you want to change any of the above, you will need to (re)submit the app to Apple.
You cannot change the keywords or screenshots used by the App store, but you can update the text description of an app in the App store without resubmitting the app.
But an app can download and change almost all other content in an app, including text, databases, button labels, colors, images, sounds, UI coordinates, Javascript, etc. There's even an Apple WWDC 2010 video on this data driven app design methodology. You can also add certain badges to an app's icon at run-time. Note that if you aren't filtering certain data/web downloads, your app may get/require an Adult rating.
As long as you are using Public APIs, it does not matter where you pull content from. I would recommend having fall-back graphics in your bundle that can be loaded if the external stuff cannot be found. Other than that, the content is up to you Apple is only trying to make sure the application itself is functional using publicly-available APIs.
How do I make a different icon name for the home screen and the App Store in iPhone?
Apple requires that all of the icons, including the large 512x512 pixel icon for iTunes, be effectively identical. In my experience the large one can be more detailed (graphic textures, etc.), as long as anyone who saw both icons would be able to clearly tell they were for the same app.
The same rule is true for the name of the app in iTunes and the name that shows below the icon on the device: an average user should be able to easily tell that the names match in some way. I've had success with the name on the device being a shortened version of the full name, dropping things like articles ("the," "a," "an") and short prepositions ("for," "by," "on," etc.). I've also had to shorten the app name to its initials ("Fighting Chicks Unlimited" became "FCU"), and it passed without problem.
I have a couple of developer friends who have had their app rejected for the icons looking too dissimilar and for the name in the App Store and the one on the device being too different, so I know Apple definitely has a line you don't want to cross.
I advise that unless there's a very compelling reason for the icons or names to be drastically different, don't bother trying; rejection and resubmission can take weeks.
I guess then that the answer your are looking for is that the icon shown in the app store is uploaded at the time you submit the app in iTunes Connect. It can then obviously be a different file but we recommend you to pass on a picture very close to what th app icon is otherwise your app could be rejected.