When NOT to Release Your Application

Regardless of all "release early, release often" and "fail early, fail often" talk, there really are moments, when you SHOULD NOT RELEASE your new application.

This could be a trick question, but it's not. Just another hard lessons learned, another strike by faceless market powers. The answer is Thanksgiving, of course.

When you are an unknown free-time indie iPhone developer a bit south of Arctic Circle, you have to plan your release timing carefully. I did, schedule slipped due to unexpected delays at App Store review - and suddenly my release was just at the eve of American Thanksgiving!

Best shopping season ever (from Black Friday to Cyber Monday) for big iOS game studios, worst time ever to release a new but obscure narrow niche developer utility.

Console On Device release got hit fast and sunk deep in the middle of the incredible shopping hysteria. Did a bit of my own shopping, too. Games and more games, so can't really blame anyone. Thanksgiving season just isn't right for utilities, I guess. There goes my one and only chance to be featured in App Store new releases list.

Actually Thanksgiving isn't The Worst Time Ever to make a release. Christmas season must be even worse - so I'm planning to release Console On Device update well before it :)

Btw here's a great article about missed timings and holiday seasons by successful indie developers: The Story of Serving Sizer, Lessons Learned in Successfully Evolving an App Over Time. Bit long, but it has a happy ending!

(pumpkin frame image from Holiday Wallpapers)