Selecting the exact date that my new app version will be made available on a marketplace

Question

I know that when you publish a new version of your app, it goes through an approval procedure from iOS, Android or Windows Phone marketplaces. Perhaps not very thorough one like the first time your post your initial version, but still you need to wait a bit until your new version is available to users.

I was wondering if this scenario if possible.

1. I post my new version for approval
2. Marketplace verifies and approves the version but does not publish it
3. I get a notification that my new version is ready and approved
4. I press the last button to publish the already approved version

Do you know if there is such a possibility in the various marketplaces?

This would be useful for marketing purposes (make a new version available on all marketplaces at the same time) or even to minimize technical issues (minimizing the different versions running on clients, especially if there connect to a server that otherwise would need to be backward compatible).

Answer 1

Yes, you can choose when to release an app (or new version of an app) at a time you choose, once it has passed the certification/verification process.

What you can't do is have it available to all users at exactly the same time. When you make the new version live it make take up to several hours before it has sync'd to all servers that each store/marketplace uses. This means you can't say that "at 9am on Tuesday you'll be able to get the new version" without actually making it available several hours earlier so it has time to spread to all servers. This may or may not be an issue.

In terms of managing backwards compatibility of your backend with regards to different versions of your app(s) this is something you will need to manage yourself. There is no marketplace which will automatically force all installed versions of an app to be updated before they can be used.
You will need to manage this within the app (i.e. check if it's the latest version and if not force the user to upgrade before they can continue.)
Realistically you should create your server to be able to support multiple versions of the client. Even if you do force all users to update before they can use a new version of the app/backend you'll still want to test the live servers while the old client apps are still being used.

Answer 2

I can't vouch for the iPhone, but for Windows Phone, yes, when you submit an app update, you can set it to publish manually, and with Android, there is no certification, so you can just publish it whenever you're ready.