I'm finishing up my first iOS game (probably submitting it for approval in a week or two), and I am looking to send builds of it to websites (like TouchArcade and many others) to see if I can get a bit of coverage. I would like to send preview builds if possible, but do you have to ask all of the journalists and bloggers for their UDIDs just to send them an ad hoc build? It seems really inefficient, and I find it hard to believe many busy writers would care to respond to an unknown developer like me no matter how good my game might really be, so I'm not even sure if it is worth the trouble. I definitely want to send review builds of course, and I know that after you get approved, Apple will give you some promo codes, but do these work before the game goes live on iTunes? If not, will I have to go with the ad hoc method? This whole marketing thing seems pretty tough to me as I'm sure it does for a lot of people, so thank you for your help!
Yes , you have to ask for the UDID's! Most of the reviewers have their udid's posted on their website, you just have to look for them! Also, once Apple gave you the green light , you can send promo codes, even dough your app is not released yet!
Promocodes is the best, but you can try https://testflightapp.com You just ask to the journalist to register their device, and you'll get their UDID and they won't have to install the build with iTunes. They just have to download it with the testflightapp. Pretty cool for beta tests as well.
Thanks very much! One more question: as an individual developer, you can only register 100 devices, so has anyone ever run into a problem with this limitation do to adding too many press members to use the ad hoc builds?
