I have mentioned that the flurry of activity this past week on the iTunes is related to the ‘freeze’ that will be in place from the 23rd through the 28th. Well, iTunes Connect sent out a reminder message, so I figured I’d do the same!
Basically it comes down to this: the state of the App Store today will remain identical until the 29th, when whatever new additions or price changes or updates have been pending will go into effect.
One interesting side-effect is that if a publisher mistakenly scheduled a price change for during this time, it will make the app unavailable for purchase from the time of the effective change until the 29th! Let’s hope no one did that!
In general I think this is a great idea – with more and more games I own coming in at 500+MB, and Apple anticipating heavy server loads with folks activating and filling up new hardware as well as using up all those iTunes gift cards, the last thing they need is all sorts of updates being pushed out and new price changes causing issues if the load causes outages and so on. Ultimately this is in all of our best interest!
Personally after getting more than 20 app updates every day for the last week I am glad for the down-time. So enjoy your holiday and see you on the other side!
Source: TiPb