I am not sure if this is the correct forum for this post. Please feel free to move it or tell me where to resubmit it.
The following is what I want to accomplish in an automated fashion such that it minimizes the amount of time the app and backend are "out of sync" in terms of their version:
Once an app update makes it out to the App Store, I want to start updating our backend.
If we cannot do that well, another consideration is if we can automate the final step in the app submission process (this is something we would also like to do eventually anyways) and, at that time, update our backend. Based on what my teammate told me, it might be the case that there could be a long period of time between the final step in the app submission process and the app actually being updated on the App Store; though he wonders if he just didn't see it in the App Store because it was the first time we submitted the app to the App Store and information about our app might not have been cached by the App Store yet.
Are there web services, web socket connections, or some sort of listener that can be used to accomplish this? If so, I would really appreciate information on it.
What I have found so far is that the following URL suffixed with your bundleId provides JSON containing the current version of the app on the App Store:
https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?bundleId=
I could write code to ping that URL and parse the JSON returned. I am not sure how often Apple would permit us to ping it, though.
Source: https://affiliate.itunes.apple.com/resources/documentation/itunes-store-web-service-search-api/
In the meantime, I will keep researching. I might submit this to Stack Overflow as well.