We are in the process of submitting TouchXPRT 2013 to the Microsoft App Store, and we are learning a lot in the process. Of course, we knew to create a Live ID for the process. However, we were surprised by the verification for the corporate account. We had to produce a lot of documentation, including our articles of incorporation, respond to phone calls and e-mail verifications, and agree to a pretty stringent legal agreement. Given the legal weight attached to the Live ID, we keep its information restricted to a minimum number of people.
Because the packages you upload to the store must be digitally signed by the Live account associated with the app store registration, a designated representative has to rebuild the package from the development team before we can submit it.
When we were preparing TouchXPRT 2013 for the app store, we restructured it to download its content after it’s installed. This allows the package in the app store to be smaller. Hosting the content was not a problem, but we did run into a couple of issues.
The first time we submitted TouchXPRT 2013 to the app store, they rejected it because they thought it was incomplete. We added a note to the testers about the download, and that resolved that issue. Next time, of course, we have learned to value of very specific notes to the testers.
The second hurdle was that, now that TouchXPRT downloaded its data, it qualified as a “network aware” application. All network aware applications must have a privacy policy and the privacy policy must be available from the application setting on the charms menu. Simply having the privacy policy was not enough. We have fixed this and submitted the application again.
The privacy policy is very simple: “TouchXPRT 2013 uses the network only to download content for its performance tests. TouchXPRT does not report any information to Principled Technologies or any other entity.” You can find it here.
In the next few weeks, we will be releasing MobileXPRT 2013 to the general public. We are already preparing it to submit to Google Play. Hopefully, things will go smoother this time!
Eric
