Screenshots, sizes and the stuff Apple rejects you for.
Written from the pipeline that actually produces these assets — exact dimensions, real capture commands, and honest reads on the other tools.
AI App Store screenshot generators: what to trust
AI is genuinely good at some parts of a store listing and actively dangerous at others. The line runs exactly where your app's UI begins — and most tools in this category cross it.
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App icon sizes, and what makes an icon work at 40 pixels
Every size iOS and Android actually need, why the store's 1024 is the least important one to design for, and the three things that separate an icon that survives a home screen from one that does not.
Read Guides · 4 minApp previews vs screenshots: which actually earns the slot
An app preview autoplays before your first screenshot, which makes it the most valuable slot on your listing and the easiest one to waste. When video helps, when it costs you, and how to decide without guessing.
Read Localization · 4 minApp screenshot localization checklist
A pre-flight list for shipping a localized set — before translating, after translating, and before uploading. Written to be run down rather than read.
Read Specs & fixes · 4 minApp Store Connect release checklist
The things that actually hold up a submission, in the order you hit them. Written as a list you can run down before pressing Submit for Review rather than after the rejection email.
Read Specs & fixes · 4 minFix "The dimensions of one or more screenshots are wrong"
App Store Connect rejects a screenshot set on exact pixel counts, not on aspect ratio. Here is what it is actually checking, and how to find the one file that is four pixels off.
Read Specs & fixes · 4 minCommon App Store and Google Play rejections, and what they actually mean
Rejection messages are terse and rarely name the file. A translation guide for the metadata and screenshot rejections you are most likely to hit, with the specific fix for each.
Read ASO · 5 minThe App Store screenshot optimization playbook
The whole practice in one place — what each panel is for, how to write captions people actually read, what to test and in what order, and the compliance lines you cannot cross. The hub for everything else we have written on this.
Read ASO · 4 minAre your App Store screenshots costing you installs?
A diagnostic you can run in ten minutes, on your own listing, without any tools. Six specific failures that leak installs from traffic you already earned — and which ones are worth fixing first.
Read Guides · 4 minApple creative assets beyond screenshots: the surfaces most listings ignore
Your screenshots are not the only images Apple shows. Search results, the product page header and editorial placements each have their own treatment — and most listings leave all of them on default.
Read Comparisons · 4 minAppStage vs AppLaunchpad: template speed against art direction
AppLaunchpad is one of the longest-running template-based screenshot builders and it does that job properly. The disagreement is about what happens when a template library gets popular.
Read Comparisons · 5 minAppStage vs AppScreens: two different bets
We spent a day inside AppScreens as an anonymous user. It is a genuinely strong production pipeline with a deliberately shallow editor. Here is what it does better than us, and where we think it is wrong.
Read Comparisons · 4 minAppStage vs AppScreenStudio: how to evaluate any screenshot tool
Rather than assert specifics about a product we have not audited, here is the evaluation we would run — five questions that separate this category faster than any feature table.
Read Comparisons · 4 minAppStage vs Fastlane: automation and art direction are different jobs
Fastlane is free, open source, runs in CI and will outlast most of this category. It also cannot art-direct, and it was never trying to. Where the line falls, and why using both is the normal answer.
Read Comparisons · 4 minAppStage vs screenshots.pro: speed, API and what you are optimizing for
screenshots.pro sits at the automated end of the template category. Where that model is genuinely stronger than ours, and the specific point at which it stops being enough.
Read ASO · 4 minA/B testing your screenshots without fooling yourself
Both stores will happily show you a winner that is noise. What a screenshot test can and cannot tell you, how long to actually run it, and the four ways these tests go wrong.
Read Comparisons · 3 minDesign tools for App Store screenshots: Figma, Sketch, Affinity, Photoshop
Not generators — actual design tools, for people who want to draw the thing themselves. What each is genuinely good at for store listings, and the store-specific problems all four share.
Read Comparisons · 5 minBest App Store screenshot tools in 2026
Six ways to produce a store listing, sorted by what you are actually optimizing for — speed, cost, control or distinctiveness. Including the cases where the right answer is not a tool at all.
Read Comparisons · 4 minFree App Store screenshot makers: what free actually costs
There are genuinely free ways to ship an accepted screenshot set, and there are free tiers that cost you a watermark or five exports. Which is which, and what you give up in each case.
Read Comparisons · 3 minCanva for App Store screenshots: where it breaks
Canva is the tool most people already have open, which makes it the default choice and often the wrong one. The three specific places store listings break it, and how to work around them if you stay.
Read Guides · 4 minGet a clean 9:41 status bar in every App Store screenshot
Apple does not require 9:41, but it does notice a set where the clock and battery change between panels. Here is the exact simctl command, verified flag by flag, plus the two things it cannot fix.
Read ASO · 4 minCustom Product Pages: matching the listing to the ad that earned the tap
A CPP is a second product page with its own URL, and the reason to build one is message match. When it is worth the maintenance, how many you actually need, and the mistake that makes them worthless.
Read Comparisons · 4 minThe fastest way to make App Store screenshots
If speed is the only thing you care about, the honest answer is not a tool — it is twenty minutes and a decision about what your first panel says. Here is the actual clock on each route.
Read Comparisons · 4 minFigma for App Store screenshots: when to stop
Figma is a better design tool than anything in this category, and it is still the wrong place to maintain a store listing. The specific point where it stops paying — and what to do about it if you stay.
Read Guides · 4 minGoogle Play feature graphics: what works at 1024 × 500
The banner above your Play listing is required, is used whenever Google promotes you, and is the most consistently wasted asset in the store. What the good ones do, and the four ways it usually goes wrong.
Read ASO · 4 minGoogle Play Store Listing Experiments: what Play lets you test that Apple does not
Play's experiment tooling is more generous than Apple's — more variants, the icon and feature graphic included, and localized listings testable separately. The setup, and the traps specific to Play.
Read Guides · 6 minHow to make App Store screenshots in 2026
The whole job end to end — capturing clean source frames, deciding what the first panel promises, designing the set, hitting exact dimensions, and testing whether any of it worked.
Read Guides · 5 minHow to take App Store screenshots from the Simulator
The capture step decides how good your listing can be, and it is the step everyone rushes. Permissions, seeded data, first-run overlays, driving to each screen without synthetic taps, and the TCC flag that quietly ruins a run.
Read Localization · 4 minHow to translate App Store screenshots without breaking them
The translation is the easy half. The hard half is that the new text is a different length, sometimes a different direction, and occasionally not in your font. A working process for both.
Read ASO · 4 miniOS Product Page Optimization: setting it up and what to test first
Apple's PPO gives you three treatments against your live page. How to configure one properly in App Store Connect, what to put in each treatment, and the order that gets you a result fastest.
Read Localization · 4 minWhich languages should you localize your app into?
The usual answer is a list of big markets, which is the wrong way round. A method for picking from your own data, plus what the App Store and Play actually support.
Read Localization · 4 minWhy localizing your screenshots works, and what it actually costs
Localization is one of the few ASO changes with a clean mechanism rather than a persuasion argument. The honest case for it, the real cost, and why the numbers you see quoted are mostly useless.
Read Company · 3 minWhy we built AppStage
We shipped the obvious version of a screenshot generator first. It worked, and the output was boring — competent, clean, and identical to everything else on the store. Fixing that turned out to be the product.
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