Application Loader

If you’ve ever had to upload a binary to the App Store that has any size to it, say, over 20 MB, it’s a little unnerving when you upload through a web-browser and the only status you get is whatever progress indicator your browser offers. Problem is, you can’t rely on the indicator as a reliable source of information about whether your connection is still alive, or even more meaningful, how far along you are in uploading a large binary.

Apple recommends the loader for binaries that are over 200MB. I’ve used it for applications that are much smaller as I find the information it provides of great value. You can find the loader by following these steps from within iTunes Connect:

• Choose Manage You Applications
• Scroll to the bottom of the page
• Click the Get Application Loader link
• Click the Download Developer Guide link (good stuff in here, btw)

To use the loader, during the process of adding a new application to the App Store, when prompted in iTunes Connect (on the Upload tab), click the checkbox that says Check here to upload your binary later.

Complete the rest of the information required for uploading an application. To begin uploading with the loader, start the application and select New from the file menu. You’ll be prompted for your login information to connect to iTunes. At this point, if all is well, you’ll be shown a dialog box that has a drop-down list of all the applications iTunes Connect recognizes that are waiting for a binary. The rest of the steps for uploading are self explanatory as the loader walks you through the paces.

Important Note:
There is one gotcha that I ran into when rejecting a binary and attempting to re-upload a new binary with the loader. After rejecting the file, I created a new build and fired up the loader. Unfortunately, the loader did not recognize that there were binaries to be uploaded into my iTunes Connect account.

Here’s what I had to do to fix the problem:

• Login into iTunes Connect (with a web-browser)
• Choose Manage You Applications

You’ll see a dialog similar to the figure below for each application in which you rejected a binary:

• Click on the Replace Binary
• From the Upload Application screen, click the checkbox Check here to upload your binary later
• Save your changes

Start up the Application Loader and you should now see the application you rejected earlier as an option for uploading a new binary.