Shipaton 2026: The Store Launch Checklist

What each award category means for your store listing

Nine categories, and most of them route through the same bottleneck: the product page a stranger sees before they decide to install. Here is the mapping.

Sponsor categories are announced separately and are not listed here.

Every App Store asset you need for a 1.0

As of 2026 Apple requires only one iPhone size. Build the 6.9-inch set and App Store Connect scales it down to every smaller iPhone class, which means one export instead of four. Full breakdown in the App Store screenshot sizes guide.

Every Google Play asset you need for a 1.0

Play is looser on dimensions than Apple but adds one asset iOS has no equivalent for: the feature graphic, which is required and has exactly one valid size. It is the most commonly missed item on a first submission. See the Play screenshot sizes guide and the feature graphic spec.

Shipping to the Samsung Galaxy Store as well? In practice your Play-sized phone screenshots and 512 x 512 icon carry over, but Samsung maintains its own listing requirements and they change more often than the other two. Confirm against Samsung's current seller documentation before you submit.

Metadata character limits, side by side

Write your copy against these numbers from the start. Rewriting a 42-character app name down to 30 the day you submit is how good names turn into bad ones.

The nine-step Shipaton launch checklist

In order. The order matters, because keywords feed your app name, your app name is unchangeable-ish once claimed, and screenshots are the only asset you can still improve after launch.

1. 1

   Pick your keywords before you write your app name

   Your app name is the single most heavily indexed field in the App Store, and you only get 30 characters. Deciding it after the build is backwards. Run keyword research first, pick one head term you can realistically own, and put it in the name.

   Run free keyword research
2. 2

   Claim the name in App Store Connect early

   App names are unique per storefront and reserved on a first-come basis. With around a thousand apps shipping in the same eight weeks, the obvious names go fast. Reserve yours as soon as you have one, well before you are ready to submit.

3. 3

   Design screenshot 1 as if it is the only one anyone sees

   In search results most people see only the first one or two panels at thumbnail size. If a stranger cannot tell what your app does from panel 1 alone, nothing else on this list will save the listing.

   Build your screenshot set
4. 4

   Caption every screenshot with a benefit, not a feature

   "Never lose a receipt again" beats "Advanced document scanning". Large type, high contrast, readable at thumbnail size.

5. 5

   Export at exact store dimensions

   App Store Connect rejects uploads that are off by a single pixel, and a rejection on September 29 is a missed deadline. Generate at spec instead of resizing by hand.

   Check every store size
6. 6

   Fill all 100 characters of the iOS keyword field

   Comma-separated, no spaces after commas, no words already used in your name or subtitle, no plurals of words you already have. This field is invisible to users, so there is no copy cost to maxing it out. Most apps leave 30 characters unused.

   Which keyword goes in which field
7. 7

   Budget real time for review, not optimistic time

   App Review is usually fast but not guaranteed, and a metadata rejection costs you a full round trip. Submit with days to spare, not hours. The window closes September 30.

8. 8

   Localize your screenshots for your top two non-English markets

   Translated captions on your existing designs, not new designs. Localized visuals routinely lift conversion double digits in those storefronts, and it is one of the few ASO levers you can still pull in the final week.

   Localization guide
9. 9

   Track your ranks from day one

   Build & Grow is judged on growth, which means you need to show movement. Pin your keyword shortlist before launch so you have a baseline to grow from, then check weekly.

   Rank tracking

The grand prize is a distribution problem, not a build problem

Close to a thousand apps launched during Shipaton 2025. Assume something similar this year. Most of them will be technically fine and functionally invisible, because a brand-new app has no ratings, no reviews, no backlinks, and no brand searches. Organic search inside the store is the only channel that will give you volume in eight weeks without a budget.

That channel has exactly two inputs. The first is whether you rank for anything, which is decided by the keywords you put in your app name, subtitle, and keyword field. The second is whether ranking converts, which is decided by your icon and your first two screenshots. Nothing else you do in those eight weeks moves install volume as much as these two things, and both are essentially free.

If you are chasing #BuildInPublic

The hard part of building in public is not the writing, it is having something to show twice a week for eight weeks. Store assets are the easiest content you own: a device mockup of the screen you just built, a before and after of a screenshot caption rewrite, a side-by-side of two variants you are testing. All of it doubles as work you had to do anyway.

If you are testing variants, the screenshot A/B testing guide covers how to run it properly, and the results make genuinely good posts because almost nobody shares real numbers.

FAQ