Store terms,
in plain English.

Store terminology is inconsistent between Apple and Google, and a lot of it is only ever defined inside a console you need an account to see. This is what the terms mean in practice.

Listing assets

• Screenshot. A marketing image on your product page. It does not have to be a literal screen capture, and most good ones are not: they are a capture composed with a background and a caption.
• Feature graphic. Google Play only. A 1024 by 500 banner shown at the top of your listing. Required, and the most commonly forgotten asset.
• App preview. Apple's in-listing video, 15 to 30 seconds, which must be captured from the app itself.
• Promo video. Google's equivalent, hosted on YouTube, with no requirement to be in-app footage.
• Adaptive icon. Android's icon format, a foreground and background layer that the launcher crops to whatever shape the device uses.

Text fields

• Subtitle. Apple, 30 characters, under the app name. Indexed for search.
• Short description. Google, 80 characters. Indexed, and the first thing shown before a user expands the listing.
• Keyword field. Apple only, 100 characters, never shown to users. Comma separated, and one of the strongest ranking inputs you control.
• Long description. 4000 characters on both. Google indexes it. Apple does not.

Sizes and displays

• Display class. Apple's grouping of devices by screen size, such as 6.9 inch. Screenshot requirements are set per class, not per model.
• Native resolution. The actual pixel count of a device screen. A simulator captures at logical resolution by default, which is typically a third of it.
• Cover fit. Scaling an image until it fills a frame and trimming the overflow. Nothing is squashed, but the edges are lost.
• Letterboxing. Padding an image to reach a target size. Both stores reject it.
• Safe area. The region of an asset guaranteed not to be cropped. Roughly the middle 80 percent of a feature graphic.

Review and policy

• App Review. Apple's human review before a version goes live. Works from the App Review Guidelines, cited by number.
• Guideline 2.3. Accurate metadata. The rule most screenshot rejections come from.
• Resolution Center. Where Apple posts a rejection and where you reply. Replying with a screen recording resolves more cases than resubmitting.
• Policy status. Google's equivalent, though Play enforcement often arrives after a release rather than before it.
• Metadata only change. An edit to the listing rather than the binary. On Play these go live in hours. On the App Store, screenshots are version level, so they wait for your next release.

Optimisation

• ASO. App store optimisation. Getting found in store search.
• Conversion rate. The share of people who see your listing and install. What screenshots actually move.
• Store Listing Experiments. Google's built in A/B testing.
• Product Page Optimization. Apple's version, up to three treatments against your current page.
• Custom product pages. Apple, alternative product pages with their own screenshots, reachable by a dedicated link. Useful for matching an ad campaign to a listing.