Like it does every holiday season, Apple on Tuesday announced the holiday downtime schedule for its App Stores, which is the same as last year: December 23-27. During that window, the Cupertino tech giant won’t be accepting any new app or app update submissions.
As a result of this, consumers like you and I won’t see any new apps, updates or pricing changes from Sunday, December 23 through Thursday, December 27, 2018, but we’ll be able to download existing apps like before. Developers should offer holiday discounts ahead of the freeze, with many of these sales promotions remaining in effect until December 28.
According to a post on Apple’s Development Center portal:
The busiest season on App Store is almost here. Make sure your apps are up to date and ready for the holidays. New apps and app updates will not be accepted December 23 to 27 (Pacific Time), so any releases should be submitted, approved and scheduled in advance. Other App Store Connect and developer account features will remain available.
Apple engineers needing some downtime, who knew?
This planned shutdown applies to both App Store and Mac App Store. For those wondering, App Store Connect is a service developers use to manage apps and their meta data.