APT14: Lookout, Screenshots only in HiRes

When I was doing my study on which iTunes country Apple App Store presence uses which language (for results, see here), I used my least selling worldwide available app to do this, which was Dinner Speech until today. I added a number at the end of each description to document the language I had edited this in.

Then I had to wait, since even after 4 hours, not all shops had the changes pushed.

The next day my son Jonathan carried out much of the worldwide research and edited the table. Since I was busy with other things, I did not immediately change back all App Website texts to delete the numbers at the end.

When I wanted to do this today, I received the friendly notice from iTunes Connect:

In order to save your changes, all iPhone/iPod touch screenshots must be a .jpeg, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, or .png file that is 960×640, 960×600, 640×960 or 640×920 pixels, at least 72 DPI, and in the RGB color space.

What had happened, I just deleted two chars: ” 1″?

It turns out,

• the edit button that enables me to change the text also uploads the screen shots
• my screen shots are still all 320×480 (low resolution) in size
• in the three days in between adding the 1 and today, Apple iTunes Connect had changed the rules
• it will not change my text as long as I have no new screenshots
• my old app website text and screenshots are not affected (as far as I can see)

Of course I am OK with that rule change, it is a change to the better, it is good for the customer and more correct to the iPhone 4(s) users. It is just that I now have to prepare 5 screenshots for 4 different supported languages before I am able to delete all the numbers in the text. It will cost me about 4 hours of work (guesstimate (a word the spelling checker knows!)) and it will not sell a single copy of Dinner Speech for me.

Another example of the meaning of: “Sometimes, progress is painful to the individual.”