App Store Optimization is localization. A Japanese user searching the App Store sees Japanese titles. A German user sees German ones. When your team writes English ASO copy and hands it to a translator whose brief is "fit the same message in German," the German usually comes in over Apple's 30-character title limit and gets truncated.
App Store Locale Audit validates per-locale metadata against both platforms' character limits and ASO best practices in one pass.
The limits nobody tells you about
iOS:
- Title: 30 characters
- Subtitle: 30 characters
- Keyword field: 100 characters (comma-separated, single-words best)
- Promotional text: 170 characters
Google Play:
- Title: 50 characters
- Short description: 80 characters
- Full description: 4000 characters
Per locale. Your US English listing is different metadata from your German listing, which is different from your Japanese listing. The App Store Connect UI lets you manage them all but doesn't warn you if you violate a locale-specific limit.
The Apple keyword-field trap
Apple's keyword field rule: don't duplicate words from your title. Apple already indexes your title. If your iOS title is "Habit Tracker" and your keyword field includes habit,tracker,productivity,goals, you just wasted two of your ~10 keyword slots.
Correct keyword field would be productivity,goals,daily,streak,reminder,mood — expanding the semantic coverage. The audit flags duplicates automatically.
Language-specific gotchas
- German runs ~20-30% longer than English. "Habit Tracker" translates to "Gewohnheits-Tracker" which is 18 chars; fits. "Daily productivity companion" becomes "Täglicher Produktivitäts-Begleiter" which is 34 chars; doesn't fit Apple's 30-char title. You'll need a shorter German re-write, not a translation.
- Japanese uses double-byte characters. "習慣トラッカー" is 7 visible characters but Apple counts it as 7 (not 14) for the 30-char limit. Good news.
- Chinese same — counted per character.
- Arabic + Hebrew right-to-left rendering means the store preview can look broken even when character count is fine.
The audit output
Per locale, a checklist showing every field's length against the platform limit, plus the keyword-duplication check, plus a pass/fail count. The AI fix prompt emits corrected per-locale title / subtitle / keyword strings that hit the limit without truncation and avoid the keyword duplication penalty.
Related reading
- App Store Audit — single-locale listing audit
- Hreflang Audit — for web-app landing pages
- Intl Signal Parity — parity across all locale signals
Fact-check notes and sources
- Apple App Store product page: developer.apple.com/app-store/product-page/
- Google Play store listing: support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859751
- App Store Connect metadata specs: developer.apple.com/app-store/connect
The $97 Launch covers shipping an app to five locales efficiently. The audit is the pre-submission check.
