NimbleBit

Most iPhone developers know that communication with Apple is most often a one way street. One can hardly blame them when the developers of all 30k-odd apps would love to email Apple and tell them how special their app is and why it deserves to be featured!

A regular day outside of Apple's offices.

While the prospect of Apple choosing your app to be featured in any capacity may seem statistically improbable, I’ve found out the hard way its always better to be prepared for it. When I was emailed a couple months ago by someone at Apple asking me for marketing materials I was grossly unprepared. I found myself hastily hitting Photoshop, my brow dripping with sweat, futilely attempting to create high resolution artwork from the low resolution art I had been developing with.

Being contacted by Apple marketing.

What can I do to be prepared?
Even if you are lucky enough to be contacted by Apple marketing, there is no guarantee they will use the assets you give them. Having the materials they ask for ready to go however, can only improve your chances of being chosen. The following resources are used by Apple marketing to feature an application:

1. High Resolution Icon
2. Title Treatment
3. Background Image

These resources are used to create the feature slides in iTunes and custom iTunes product pages, and have the following specifications.

High Resolution Icon
Sky Burger Example
512×512 minimum. This is essentially the same image uploaded in the app submission process, but be sure to design the icon at this resolution or higher. Blurry upscaled icons probably make Apple designers cry.

Title Treatment
Sky Burger Example
The title treatment / logo for the application should be simple and easy to read when scaled down to a small size. Limit tag or bylines if they are not legible at small scale.
Vector .eps, .ai or minimum 600 x 600 px transparent .psd or .tif

Background Image
Sky Burger Example (compressed)
The background image, texture, color or gradient should correspond to the application or compliment the title treatment. It may include elements of the application itself, but should not be or include screenshots.
900 x 530 px layered .psd

Custom iTunes pages, much nicer than drab grey!

Does spending the effort to make these materials increase your chances of being featured? No, but even if they never make it into Apple’s hands they will be valuable for use in other marketing efforts, which for iPhone developers should be half the battle.