Update: Apple has sent out an email to published developers letting them know that the iTunes Connect will be shut down December 23-28 with no mention of Thanksgiving. This is good news for most developers and it contradicts the rumor that was the basis for this story. During the shutdown, developers will not be able to make any additions or changes to their published apps.

Apple also specifically noted that if you set the release date of your app or update to a date during the shutdown, your app will not go live until iTunes Connect has returned.

iTunes Connect access will return on December 29th.

[Update via MacRumors]

Heard through the grapevine that in addition to the now traditional lock down of the App Store during the week of Christmas, this year we’ll see an additional lock down the week of Thanksgiving. These are traditionally very busy weeks for the App Store. And this lockdown presents some interesting challenges to app marketing.

This means that developers will be locked out of iTunes Connect and will not be able to make any changes to their applications during these two weeks. Traditionally two weeks where developers quickly dropped the prices of their apps to grab as many new users as possible. That will be more difficult this year.

The interesting thing is that the top app lists all freeze as well. So that means whoever is in number 1 when the lock down starts stays there. A new change this year is that developers can schedule price changes for some point in the future. Until we hear the official word from Apple on these lockdowns, we won’t know if these scheduled price changes will work during these weeks or if prices are locked down as well.

Plan your marketing appropriately. Make sure you app is live before the lock down. And set your focus to be as high up in the charts as possible when the app store locks down, not on Christmas day.

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