My understanding is that there is an editorial meeting once a week in which Apple decides which apps to feature. I'm assuming that bigger companies have contacts in the editorial group. Can anyone speak to this?
This is true. They will contact you if they need "brick" sized art for the horizontal auto-scroll headline apps. They also may contact you if your app is in "hold for developer release" while they're making their decision. If you are in contact with them, I advise against releasing an update during the process. It muddies the waters with the editorial team and you really just want to make their decision simple.
Featuring changes every thursday. The week after featuring you end up in the "new and noteworthy" section which is like getting 1/2 to 2/3rds of a featuring.
Apple changes up the featured sections once a week. And big game companies do seem to have contacts within Apple to help coordinate launches. Frequently big games will be launched on Thursday morning to coordinate with the featuring change up.
For example, Horn was released last week on Thursday and was simultaneously the "Editor's choice" for the App Store feature.
I've never heard of anyone having a contact within Apple's app review/editorial section, from all my readings on Quora + Message boards to an insider email list which have execs from mobile/social gaming companies.
Seems they are very secretive with this stuff too, nobody even knows how many app reviewers they employ, or where they're based out of.
