Release notes: required for updates, not first submissions
What’s New in This Version is required for updates and not for a first submission. It is localizable, which means an app shipping in several languages needs it in each of them.
Why it matters
It is listed among App Store Connect’s required properties with exactly that qualification: required for updates. A first submission has nothing to describe changes against.
Because it is localizable, a version submitted with release notes in the primary language and blank elsewhere is incomplete in the localizations that were left empty.
This is graded as a risk rather than a blocker because it is a metadata gap that is usually caught before review rather than at it.
It is worth more than compliance. The release notes are the only place on the product page that changes between versions, and they are read by the people most likely to be deciding whether to keep the app.
Copying the same paragraph forward, or shipping "bug fixes and improvements" for the fifth time, satisfies the field and wastes it. Neither is a rejection; both are a missed page.
How to fix it
- Write release notes for the version, in every localization the app ships in.
- If this is a first submission, skip it: the field does not apply and the report says so rather than asking.
- Check every localization rather than only the primary one, since the requirement is per localization and a blank one is the half that gets missed.
The guidelines behind it
Read from Apple’s App Review Guidelines as last updated October 16, 2026.
What ReviewAhead checks
Version metadata. Updates require release notes; first submissions do not.
- Whether this is a first submission or an update, read from whether any version has reached the App Store when your account is linked.
- Release notes per localization, read back from App Store Connect.
- Derives "not applicable" for a first submission rather than asking a question that has no answer.
- Reports which localizations have notes and which do not, when the account is linked.
Apple’s own documentation for this requirement: developer.apple.com. Where this page and Apple disagree, Apple is right and this page is a bug.