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Apple Shutting Down iTunes Connect Again This Year For The Holidays

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Over the years the reports of Apple's death have been greatly exaggerated.According to the always entertaining Apple Death Knell Counter, Apple has been declared dead no less than 65 times since April, 1995. Usually the attempt of journalists looking to pick up click-throughs/sell books/make a fool of themselves, the disease can often manifest in business analysts, other CEOs, and generally anyone who should know better. A recent example? Trip Chowdhry, writing for CNBC, who sagely noted that Apple must come up with its debut wearables product within 60 days or it will perish.

Over the years the reports of Apple's death have been greatly exaggerated.

According to the always entertaining Apple Death Knell Counter, Apple has been declared dead no less than 65 times since April, 1995. Usually the attempt of journalists looking to pick up click-throughs/sell books/make a fool of themselves, the disease can often manifest in business analysts, other CEOs, and generally anyone who should know better. A recent example? Trip Chowdhry, writing for CNBC, who sagely noted that Apple must come up with its debut wearables product within 60 days or it will perish. "It will take years for Apple's $130 billion in cash to vanish, but it will become an irrelevant company ... it will become a zombie, if they don't come up with an iWatch.” See what we mean?

Sadly these rumors won’t go anywhere, regardless of what AAPL stock prices do. Hey, at least they make amusing reading after the fact.


Every year, Apple takes pity on the poor App Store overseers who guard the gates of the company’s walled garden and gives them a few days around the holidays off from the crushing grind of manually approving new apps and updates. During this time, app store developers can’t submit app updates, price changes, or in-app purchases, and Newsstand publications will not be updated, even if a new issue is available.

When will this fallow period come this year? Exactly when you’d expect: Christmas week.

Apple has announced to developers that from December 21st to December 27, iTunes Connect — the portal through which App Store developers submit apps and updates — will be shut down:

iTunes Connect will be temporarily unavailable from Saturday, December 21, to Friday, December 27, 2013.

During that time, iTunes Connect will not be accessible and you will not be able to submit any apps or In-App Purchases. Processing of any Newsstand Atom feeds will be delayed until after December 27. Sales and Trends reports via the Autoingestion tool will be available but may also be delayed.

Also, you should not schedule any pricing changes or apps to go live between those dates. Pricing changes scheduled to take effect in that date range will cause the app to become unavailable for purchase until after December 27. Similarly, apps scheduled to go live during that range will not be released until after December 27.

If you have any additional questions, use the Contact Us module on iTunes Connect.

If you’re an end user, you won’t notice anything except a derth of new apps or app updates during that period. If you were a dev intending on launching a new app Christmas week, though, tough noogies.

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