# App Store Change Monitor: Version, Price, Rating, New Reviews (`northpine-studio/app-store-monitor`) Actor

Track apps on the Apple App Store and get alerted to what changed since the last run: new version and release notes, price change, rating drop, description or screenshot changes, plus new reviews. Schedule it daily. State is kept between runs. No API keys.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/northpine-studio/app-store-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Northpine Studio](https://apify.com/northpine-studio) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$0.50 / 1,000 change or review rows

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## App Store Change Monitor

Tracks apps on the Apple App Store between runs (state kept in a named key-value store) and reports: new version + release notes,
price change, rating drop (configurable threshold), rating-count change, description/name/screenshot-count changes, and new reviews.
Data comes from Apple's public iTunes Lookup API and customer-reviews RSS (no key). Throttled to about 19 calls/minute.
Output: one `app-snapshot` row per app/country when it is a first-run `baseline` or has `changed` (with a `changes` list and `alerts`); unchanged apps and not-found apps are counted in the run's SUMMARY (key-value store), not the dataset, so you only pay for news (set `emitUnchanged` for a row every run),
plus one `new-review` row per unseen review. Image URLs are returned as links only.

Input example: `{"apps":["https://apps.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252","com.spotify.client"],"countries":["us","gb"],"maxReviewPages":2}`

Limits: Apple's review feed holds roughly 500 recent reviews per storefront; first run only records a baseline; optional chart-rank tracking (`trackRanks`: free/paid/grossing; position in Apple's public top-200 charts, overall and in the app's primary category, with the previous run's ranks alongside) so run history builds a rank timeline.
Not affiliated with Apple.

### Dev

`npm i && npm test` (stubbed HTTP). Live smoke test: see git history / run `lib.run` with an in-memory store.

Errors: if Apple is unreachable or rate-limiting after retries the run fails with a clear message (it never reports an outage as "not found"); apps that succeeded are still saved. Invalid entries in `apps` are logged as warnings, and the run fails if none is valid. Duplicate apps/countries are collapsed.

# Actor input Schema

## `apps` (type: `array`):

App Store URLs, numeric app IDs (e.g. 389801252) or bundle IDs (e.g. com.spotify.client).

## `countries` (type: `array`):

Two-letter country codes. Each app is checked in each country.

## `includeReviews` (type: `boolean`):

Emit one row per review not seen in earlier runs (most recent reviews only; Apple's feed is limited to roughly 500 per storefront).

## `maxReviewPages` (type: `integer`):

Each page holds about 50 reviews. Checking stops early once already-seen reviews are reached.

## `emitReviewsOnFirstRun` (type: `boolean`):

By default the first run only records a baseline.

## `ratingDropThreshold` (type: `number`):

Flag a rating-drop alert when the average rating falls by at least this much.

## `trackRanks` (type: `array`):

Record the app's position (1-200, null if outside) in Apple's public top charts, overall and in its primary category, each run. Builds a rank history over time.

## `emitUnchanged` (type: `boolean`):

By default only the first-run baseline and apps with changes produce dataset rows; unchanged apps are only counted in the SUMMARY.

## `includeScreenshotUrls` (type: `boolean`):

Adds links to the app's screenshots (links only, images are not copied).

## `stateStoreName` (type: `string`):

Named key-value store holding the previous snapshots. Use a different name for a separate watch list.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "apps": [
    "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252"
  ],
  "countries": [
    "us"
  ],
  "includeReviews": true,
  "maxReviewPages": 1,
  "emitReviewsOnFirstRun": false,
  "ratingDropThreshold": 0.1,
  "trackRanks": [],
  "emitUnchanged": false,
  "includeScreenshotUrls": false,
  "stateStoreName": "app-store-monitor-state"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "apps": [
        "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252"
    ],
    "countries": [
        "us"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("northpine-studio/app-store-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "apps": ["https://apps.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252"],
    "countries": ["us"],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("northpine-studio/app-store-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "apps": [
    "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252"
  ],
  "countries": [
    "us"
  ]
}' |
apify call northpine-studio/app-store-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,northpine-studio/app-store-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/TrZ4fz6V4D71By0kb/builds/7tQ8wuA6NJveXLUrb/openapi.json