03 · Store & release
Store submission, review, release management and the support that keeps a live product healthy.
App store launch covers everything between a finished build and a product real people are using: submission to the App Store, Google Play and Huawei AppGallery, store listings and assets, review responses, phased rollout, and the ongoing maintenance a live product needs.
Store review is where a lot of first-time products stall, and it's rarely the engineering that trips them — it's a privacy declaration that doesn't match what the app actually does, a missing data-safety form, or a screenshot that violates a guideline nobody read closely enough. We've taken four apps through review on three stores, in as many as seven languages, and we know which rejections are avoidable because we've had most of them once.
Huawei AppGallery review runs its own process, separate from Apple's and Google's, with its own timeline and its own quirks around HMS Core declarations. Treating it as an afterthought after the other two stores are done is the single most common way we've seen a launch slip.
After release the job changes shape rather than ending. Crash monitoring, OS updates that break something that worked last month, store-policy changes that arrive with no warning, and the small fixes that decide whether someone opens the app a second time — that's the maintenance work, and it starts the day the app goes live, not when something breaks.
- App Store, Google Play and Huawei AppGallery submission
- Store listings, screenshots and localisation across your target languages
- Privacy policy, terms and data-safety declarations that match what the app actually does
- Phased rollout and release management
- Review-rejection response and resubmission
- Monitoring, maintenance and version updates once the product is live
Questions
About app store launch.
How long does app store review actually take?
Apple typically reviews within 24–48 hours once a build is submitted correctly; Google Play can be a few hours to a few days; Huawei AppGallery review tends to run longer and is easy to underestimate if it's treated as an afterthought behind the other two stores.
What's the most common reason apps get rejected?
Mismatches between what the privacy policy or data-safety form says and what the app actually does — not broken functionality. Reviewers check declarations against behaviour, and inconsistency is the fastest way to a rejection.
Do you handle the Huawei AppGallery submission differently?
Yes. It's a separate review process from Apple's and Google's, with its own HMS Core declarations and its own timeline — we scope it as its own step rather than assuming it rides along with the other two.
What happens after launch — is that the end of the engagement?
No. Launch is the middle of the product's life, not the end. OS updates, store-policy changes and crashes on devices you've never held are ongoing, and maintenance is a continuing service, not a one-off delivery.
The other three stages
UI/UX Design
Customer journeys, information architecture and UI/UX for mobile apps, web apps and digital products.
Read more 02Mobile App Development
Native and cross-platform mobile apps, web applications, APIs and the back-end that holds them up.
Read more 04SEO, AEO & GEO
SEO, app store optimisation, answer-engine visibility and campaigns that bring people to the thing you built.
Read moreReady to talk about app store launch?
Send a paragraph on what you're building — that's enough to start scoping.