How to Publish Your App on the App Store — Step by Step (2026)

I submitted my app at 4 in the morning, and the code had been finished for days. That's the annoying part. Nothing here tells you what's wrong. Fix a bug and it either works or it doesn't. But nobody tells you what's wrong with your subtitle. Or your screenshot. Or which screenshot should go first. You just sit there guessing, and I did a lot of guessing. So I recorded the whole thing. Everything between an app sitting in TestFlight and a listing people can actually download. The app is Rhydle, a profit tracker I built. You log what came in and what went out, it does the rest. This works from anywhere in the world. I'm not building the app in this video, not opening Xcode, and not setting up an Apple developer account. Need the developer account first? That one's linked below. 00:00 4 a.m., submitted 00:31 Why this is harder than writing the code 00:49 Leaving TestFlight 00:59 Screenshots. Do these first, nothing unlocks without them 01:36 What the app actually does 01:45 App name, description, keywords 02:02 App privacy and the policy page 02:21 The reviewer account. A dead login is an instant rejection 03:10 Pricing, availability, age rating 03:23 Submitted. Now you wait, usually two or three days 03:43 Six ways to get rejected 05:03 The whole checklist in one list The six traps: Account deletion has to work inside the app, or give people a link that does it. If you offer any sign-in at all, and that includes Google, Apple wants Sign in with Apple in there too. Billing has to work both ways, so subscribing and cancelling. Dead buttons and dead screens will get you rejected, so click everything. Permission strings need to say what the permission is actually for. "This app needs camera access" is not a reason. And don't write "also available on Android" anywhere. Say it syncs across your devices. One thing that saved me time: AI is decent at making App Store screenshots. Mine were done in Canva before I started. I still don't know if they're any good, so tell me in the comments whether you'd tap Download on them. Before any of my builds goes near the App Store it runs through a gate that checks the code, runs a security audit, runs the tests and checks compliance. Want that skill? Leave a comment and I'll send it. I'll come back with how long approval took. If it gets rejected I'll film that one as well. Frank