New creative assets are now live on the App Store: what developers and advertisers need to know

Creative assets are now live on the App Store. Since October 5, 2026, developers can add dedicated images and videos to their product page header and to search results, manage them in Asset Library, and check how they will look with the new product page preview tool in App Store Connect. Apple Developer first announced creative assets at WWDC 2026.

The product page header and search results placements appear for people using iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 or later. Apple Ads has stated that creative assets are coming soon to Today tab ads and search results ads, and that assets approved in App Store Connect can be prepared now. The release lands a few weeks before the holiday season.

For developers and advertisers, this is the biggest expansion of creatives since custom product pages launched. The teams that put approved assets live before November will enter the holiday season with test data and a library they can reuse. In this article, we will cover what is live now, the specifications and content rules, how it changes daily ASO and Apple Ads work, and where to start.

What was announced at WWDC 2026, and what is live now

Three announcements matter most for marketing teams:

• Creative assets. A new asset type alongside screenshots and app previews. These dedicated images and videos can appear at the top of your product page, inside search results, on custom product pages, and in Apple Ads campaigns.
• Asset Library. A centralized hub in App Store Connect where teams upload, manage, and pre-approve creative assets. Assets are submitted independently of app releases, so creative updates no longer wait for a build to clear review.
• Personalized Collections. A recommendation layer that surfaces apps across the Apps, Games, and Search tabs based on a user’s interests, downloads, and app activity. Each recommendation includes an App Note, a short explanation of why the app was suggested. Apple Developer says Collections are currently available in select countries and regions for a limited number of apps, with planned expansion over time.

All three of these announcements point in the same direction. The App Store keeps getting better at showing the right app, with the right message, to the right person. Your job is to make sure your app arrives at that moment with creative that fits.

Status as of October 2026

What creative assets are, and where users will see them

Creative assets are the App Store visuals, separate from the screenshots and app previews you already manage. Apple Developer uses the term for the dedicated images and videos that can now appear in new placements across the App Store, and two of those placements deserve close attention. They are optional and complement your existing screenshots and app previews rather than replacing them. Creative assets can also be used for in-app event cards.

The first is the product page header, which sits above your icon and screenshots and can be a static image or a video. Think of it the way you think about the hero section of your best landing page: brand-level creative with room for lifestyle imagery, color, and motion, rather than another UI capture. Videos loop and start muted in both placements. On your product page, people can unmute them; in search results, they can’t be unmuted.

The second is search results, where a dedicated image or video can represent your app instead of the default screenshot strip. Users in search are in intent mode, so this asset has one job: communicate your core value fast enough to earn the tap within the first half second. Search results assets also appear in search in the Apple Games app. Videos in this placement loop and stay muted, so the message has to work without sound. If you don’t add a search results asset, your app appears in search results as it does today.

A universal asset can serve both placements. In App Store Connect, select “Use header asset in search results” to reuse your header; the shared format is a 16:9 PNG at 5244 x 2950 pixels. The App Store asset best practices recommend this approach to strengthen brand recognition.

For advertisers, Apple Ads has stated that approved creative assets are coming soon to search results ads and Today tab ads, so the asset you prepare for organic placements can later carry your paid message too.

Both placements can be validated through product page optimization before a broad rollout, which means you can test header and search creative the way you already test screenshots. Product page optimization runs on your default product page and isn’t available for custom product pages, so test header directions there and carry the winner over to your custom product pages. Because creative assets appear only on iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 or later, test results reflect that part of your audience.

Specifications at a glance

Images can’t include transparency. Videos accept .mov, .m4v, or .mp4.

Content rules to plan around

Creative assets follow stricter rules than many teams apply to screenshots, so it helps to brief designers on them before production:

• 4+ age rating. Assets shown on the App Store must meet a 4+ age rating, even when the app itself is rated higher. Games with violence can use action imagery but must avoid gore and weapons pointed at a person or the audience.
• No prices or offers. Leave out specific pricing, discounts, website URLs, and copyright symbols. Apple Ads adds that ads can’t include pricing, offers, or incentivized promotions.
• Only verifiable claims. Avoid awards you haven’t received, App Store recognitions such as Editor’s Choice or App of the Day, and logos or references to other platforms.
• Short, localized text. If you use text, keep it to a short phrase and localize it for every language your app supports. For Apple Ads, text must match the default language of the country or region where the campaign runs.
• Safe area. Keep the focal point in the center of the composition. The Figma, Photoshop, Pixelmator, and Sketch templates Apple provides mark the safe area for each placement.

What the Asset Library means for your workflow

In our experience, this addresses a common pain point: creative updates have often been tied to new app build releases, meaning a seasonal campaign launched on a Friday could sit stale on your product page while an app update was still in review.

The Asset Library changes the mechanics:

1. One hub for everything. Screenshots, app previews, and the new creative assets live together in App Store Connect, reusable across your default page, custom product pages, and in-app events.
2. Pre-approval. Assets can go through review before you need them. A seasonal campaign becomes a scheduling decision because the creative is already cleared and waiting. Standalone submissions are reviewed against your app’s latest version.
3. Live updates. Approved assets go live without an app update, so your store presence can follow your marketing calendar instead of your release calendar. On the live version, open the Header and Search Results tab, choose Browse Assets, select an approved asset, and click Publish.
4. Access and automation. Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, and Marketing roles can manage the library, and teams with automated pipelines can upload and submit assets through the App Store Connect API. Removing an asset from a placement keeps it in the library; only assets that haven’t been submitted can be deleted, and the rest can be archived.

The practical result: the App Store now supports campaign-speed creative operations. Teams that build a library of pre-approved seasonal and audience-specific assets will refresh their store presence in hours. Teams that treat store creative as a once-per-release task will fall behind the moment a competitor starts testing weekly.

What advertisers need to know for Apple Ads

The creative expansion lands alongside two meaningful updates on the paid side. Apple Ads launched an additional placement in search results in March 2026, giving advertisers more opportunities to reach users at the moment of intent. And custom product pages, long familiar to advertisers as landing pages for search results campaigns, can now appear in organic search results as well. You can assign keywords to each custom product page so it appears in search results for those keywords instead of your default product page, and you can publish up to 70 custom product pages.

Apple Ads has stated that creative assets are coming soon to Today tab ads and search results ads. When they arrive, you will select assets already approved in App Store Connect, manage localization, deep links, and tap destinations in your Apple Ads account, and submit each ad for Apple Ads review before it runs. Image assets are supported in both placements; video assets are limited to search results ads.

Three implications stand out for user acquisition teams:

• Ad creative and store creative are converging. The same assets serve product page headers and organic search results today, and Apple Ads has stated they are coming soon to search results ads and Today tab ads. Users experience your ad and your product page as one journey, so the message has to hold from tap to install.
• Custom product pages work harder. Custom product pages raise conversion rates by an average of 2.5 percentage points. Each page can now serve a keyword theme or audience segment across paid and organic surfaces at once. The mapping between pages, keywords, and ad groups becomes a core piece of account structure. MobileAction’s Organic CPP Results in ASO Intelligence already shows how custom product pages perform in organic search, so you can see this shift in your own data as it happens.
• Creative relevance decides more of the outcome. More placements bring more opportunity, and the advertisers who match message to intent will capture a disproportionate share of it.

The conclusion: running ASO and Apple Ads as separate functions no longer matches how the App Store works. The audience insight that shapes your ad should shape the product page it leads to, and the creative that wins in paid should inform what you test organically.

How to get started: five steps before the holiday season

Header and search results placements are live now, and Apple Ads support is coming soon, so these steps can run in parallel.

1. Audit your current store presence. Open your product page the way a first-time visitor does, on a phone. Review the screenshots, previews, copy, and custom product pages, and note which assets no longer match your positioning. The preview tool in App Store Connect shows how a new header or search results asset will look in Dark Mode and across devices and orientations before you submit it. This audit becomes your production brief for the new formats.
2. Build a creative template system. Header images and search result videos are new formats with their own specs. Start from the Figma, Photoshop, Pixelmator, or Sketch templates Apple provides, which mark the safe area for each placement. Design one strong layout per format, then produce audience variations by changing the message rather than starting over. This is how a small team keeps pace with a large one.
3. Map custom product pages to keyword themes. Decide which audiences, features, and seasonal moments deserve their own page, then assign each page to the search results campaigns and ad groups where that intent appears.
4. Test messages in paid before investing in production. Ad variations built from custom product pages return conversion data within days. Read tap-through and conversion rates, then put design hours behind the messages that win. MobileAction CMP connects this test data to downstream performance, so you see which creative wins on conversion, not only on taps. Submit the winning creative to Asset Library early: an approved asset can go live on your product page right away and will be ready to select once Apple Ads support arrives.
5. Measure past the install. Track activation, trial starts, and retention by source and by product page. Personalized Collections reward apps that keep users engaged, so retention now supports your visibility as well as your revenue.

To sum up

The pattern behind every WWDC 2026 announcement is the same: the App Store keeps getting better at matching apps to the people most likely to value them, and creative is now the language of that match. With header and search results placements now live, the teams that move first will have test results in hand during the busiest weeks of the year. Teams that audit their store presence, build their asset pipeline, and connect their organic and paid creative before the holiday season will compete for Q4 traffic with tools their competitors are still reading about.

With MobileAction, you have the creative intelligence, the CPP data, and the Apple Ads infrastructure to act on everything these updates put on the table.

If you want to see how your app’s store presence measures up now that these changes are live, book a demo today, and our experts will walk through it with your own data!