Apple brings three new App Store features for developers

Apple has announced new App Store features for publishers and developers, giving them more flexibility during the app review process and extra options to customize the product pages and offers.

Developers can now submit additional items to App Review when their existing submission is already under review. According to the company's updated submission guidelines, developers can submit one or more In-App Events in a separate submission if they have an app version under review.

They can submit an app version addressing a critical bug, separate from the existing custom product pages under review. Developers can also submit one or more Game Center features in a separate submission from an app version under review. The items could be leaderboards, achievements, challenges, and other stuff.

Apple has doubled the number of custom product pages, and app developers can now publish up to 70 custom pages at any given time. Custom product pages showcase the features of apps or games through app previews, screenshots, and other marketing materials.

Developers can make these pages more discoverable on the App Store by adding relevant keywords to each custom product page. When people search for these keywords, the App Store will show the app's custom product page in the search results instead of its default product page, Apple said.

The iPhone-maker has also updated Offer codes to support all In-App purchase types, including consumable, non-consumable, and non-renewing subscriptions, in addition to auto-renewable subscriptions. Offer codes let developers give users a taste of their app's or game's features for a limited time, either for free or at a discount on in-app purchases.

Offer codes are built on top of another feature, promo codes, offering more customer eligibility options, expiration dates, and a limit of up to one million codes per quarter. Apple said that promo codes will stop supporting in-app purchases starting March 26 next year.

Developers will no longer be able to create promo codes for in-app purchases in App Store Connect. However, users can redeem existing promo codes until they expire. Apple added that developers can continue using promo codes to offer free app downloads.

The App Store is like a mini ecosystem in itself, but it sometimes lands the company in trouble. Being home to millions of apps and games, it's often a common target for bad actors and fraudsters. Speaking of which, Apple claims it has saved users from losing over $9 billion due to fraudulent transactions over the last five years.