App Store Launch Detector — country, release date and category

Find recently released iOS apps available in selected Apple App Store countries. Combine Apple's new-app feed, top charts and optional keyword searches, then verify each candidate through country-specific iTunes Lookup. Filter by Apple-reported original release date and category, and retain a private history for repeat monitoring.

Useful for app-market research, ASO teams, developer discovery and app-launch research workflows. No Apple credentials, proxy subscription or paid child Actor is required. This Actor reuses the public Apple collection approach in Mako's App Store search and chart Actors.

First run

{
  "countries": ["us", "gb"],
  "daysBack": 30,
  "categoryIds": [],
  "includeNewReleases": true,
  "includeCharts": true,
  "monitorName": "recent-apps-us-gb",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Open the dataset for matches and the SUMMARY record for verified candidate counts, exclusions and source limits. A first monitoring run returns initial_release_match rows. Repeat the same input and monitor name to receive only additional qualifying observations. An unchanged repeat can correctly return zero rows.

For a fixed date range, use releaseDateFrom and optionally releaseDateTo as YYYY-MM-DD. Both days are inclusive in UTC. Explicit dates override daysBack. Choose a new monitor name when changing date rules or discovery filters.

{
  "countries": ["de", "fr"],
  "releaseDateFrom": "2026-09-01",
  "releaseDateTo": "2026-09-30",
  "categoryIds": ["6007"],
  "keywords": ["productivity"],
  "historyMode": "snapshot"
}

This searches today's bounded sources for apps with those original release dates. It does not recreate September's complete app catalogue, rankings or availability history.

Filters and collection limits

Input	Meaning
countries	Up to 5 Apple storefront codes, such as us, gb, ie, de, fr, br. Country means the storefront queried.
daysBack	Last 1–365 UTC calendar days, including today; default 30.
releaseDateFrom, releaseDateTo	Optional original-release date range. End defaults to today. Future releases are excluded, including future timestamps today.
categoryIds	Up to 5 Apple genre IDs. Matches primary or secondary genre. Empty means any category. Examples: 6007 Productivity, 6000 Business, 6017 Education, 6014 Games.
keywords	Up to 8 optional Apple searches to add candidates. Results are not ordered by release date.
includeNewReleases	Include Apple's newapplications feed; default true. Membership does not prove recency.
includeCharts, chartTypes	Include available free/paid charts; default top-free. Missing charts cause a visible failure, not a silent switch.
appIds	Up to 100 known app IDs to verify; these are prioritized before discovery sources.
monitorName	A private reusable history name, default default. Keep filters consistent or use another name.
outputMode	new suppresses previously delivered matches; all returns qualifying observations again.
historyMode	monitor saves history; snapshot performs an independent lookup without accessing history.
perSourceLimit	1–200 candidates per feed/search, default 100. Apple may ignore its requested limit; we enforce this locally.
maxCandidates	Total distinct app-country candidates, default 500, maximum 2,000.
maxResults	Delivered rows this run, default 100. Undelivered eligible matches remain queued in monitor mode.
maxRequests	Discovery plus verification requests, default 40, maximum 80. Reduce scope if verification cannot finish.
requestTimeoutSecs	Per-request timeout, default 25 seconds. Collection is paced and limited to 330 seconds overall.

An app present in two countries produces two country observations. Apps found through multiple sources in the same country are deduplicated.

What each result tells you

• App ID, name, developer, category, price, rating, languages and App Store link.
• releaseDate: Apple's reported app release timestamp, checked through Lookup. It is not independent proof of the app’s first-ever worldwide launch.
• currentVersionReleaseDate: the latest version's date, kept separate and never substituted for launch date.
• firstSeenAt: when this monitor first observed that app in this country. This is our own history, starting with your runs.
• observedAt: when the delivered observation was collected. Queued observations retain their original timestamp.
• eventType: initial_release_match, new_release_match or one-off snapshot.
• eventId: a stable identifier for downstream deduplication; source links are included as evidence.

launchCountryConfirmed is always false: Apple lookup availability in a storefront does not establish the app's first release date in that specific country. A new_release_match means newly qualifying for your monitor and release window, not a claim we observed a launch at that exact moment.

Monitoring and integrations

Run on demand through the Apify API or create an Apify schedule using the same input and monitor name. Monitoring runs only when you run or schedule it; publishing the Actor does not create a schedule. Use the dataset's JSON, CSV or Excel export with n8n, Make, a spreadsheet or your own application. Scheduling, alert delivery and integrations are configured by you; this Actor does not send messages itself.

History is isolated by the running user, Actor and monitor name. Concurrent runs of the same monitor are prevented by a renewable lock. Changing discovery/date scope requires a new monitor name. No historical entry is silently deleted because an app is absent from a later source sample. History is limited to 50,000 app-country entries; start another monitor if this limit is reached.

Output delivery is at least once: a crash after dataset delivery but before saving its acknowledgement can repeat a row. Deduplicate on eventId downstream. A source failure does not accept a partial collection into history. Matches pending because of maxResults are rechecked against the date window before later delivery.

Coverage and limitations

This is bounded discovery, not every app launched worldwide. Apple's new-app feed can include old apps or future releases and can ignore category and limit parameters. We verify metadata and apply release/category filters afterward. Country charts and keyword searches are limited samples; absent results do not prove no launches occurred.

No download estimates, revenue estimates, guaranteed contact emails, instant alerts or complete historical backfill are provided. Google Play is not included in this version. Missing original release dates and future releases are excluded and counted in SUMMARY. A changed, unavailable or blocked source produces an error with its request status rather than a false empty success.

Pricing

Launch price: $0.03 per Actor-start event, minimum one event per run; Apify counts startup events per allocated GB, with a minimum of one. This version allows 256–512 MB, so the normal run uses one event. There is no per-result fee and no paid child scraper. Startup is charged even when no matching new apps are found or a source fails. Consult the live Pricing tab for the active price and any tier discounts before running. Free-plan credit use is subject to Apify's rules.

Support

Open an issue with your run URL, country/category filters and the expected behavior. Never post tokens or credentials. This is an independently developed tool, not an Apple product or an exhaustive App Store data service.