Why Is App Publishing Still So Manual, and Should It Be Automated?

When I launched my first mobile app, I genuinely thought the hard part was over.

The product worked. Then I opened App Store Connect. And suddenly I was dealing with things I hadn’t really prepared for like

• Metadata fields I didn’t fully understand
• Screenshot requirements
• Writing descriptions that felt like a mix of marketing + compliance
• Figuring out keywords without any clear feedback loop
• Getting rejected and not fully understanding why

It didn’t feel like “finishing” a product. It felt like starting a completely different job.
What surprised me most was how little of this actually improved the app itself. It was all necessary, but none of it made the product better for users.

After going through this a few times, I stopped treating publishing as a one-off task and started thinking of it as a system.

I ended up building a small internal tool for myself , mostly to avoid repeating the same steps every time. Nothing fancy. Just something to reduce the mental overhead.

Over time, I started using it more than I expected, especially when iterating or shipping new apps.

Now I’m wondering if this is a shared pain or just something I personally over-optimized.

If you’ve published apps before, did you find the process straightforward, or weirdly heavy for something that should be routine?