version and release notes fields

Version and release notes fields are the freshness signals in an app-metadata record: the current version string, the date that version shipped, and the changelog text describing what changed. Four cataloged sources show the field conventions side by side:

• Apple iTunes Search API - each JSON app object carries 'version', 'releaseNotes' and 'currentVersionReleaseDate' among its ~40 fields.
• Google Play Store Apps (Kaggle, lava18) - the 13-column snapshot includes 'Last Updated' and 'Current Ver', scraped February 2019 and static since.
• Chrome Web Store - every item page exposes version, size and an 'updated' date, across roughly 360,000 indexed items.
• Google Play Store (Web Catalog) - per-app pages pair description with a changelog showing latest-version notes only.

None of these sources publishes archival history of earlier releases - the fields describe the present listing, not a version timeline.

These fields are usually the only freshness evidence a store source offers, so their staleness tells you the dataset's true age. The Kaggle Play snapshot is the cautionary example: 'Last Updated' and 'Current Ver' freeze the catalog at February 2019 (version 6, 2019-02-03), so every row is seven years old.

There is also a structural gap: live sources expose only the latest version. Chrome Web Store refreshes sitemap lastmod daily but publishes "no historical version archive", and Play's changelog shows only the newest notes. Release-frequency analytics built on current-state fields miss every intermediate version.

Rights follow the same pattern: readable everywhere, but sources differ from a key-less official API (Apple) to terms-restricted scraping (Google properties).

1. Check which of the three signals exist. The full set is version string + update date + changelog text; Apple supplies all three, Chrome exposes two, and the Kaggle snapshot offers two columns and no notes.

1. Timestamp the dataset, not just the rows. The Kaggle file's update history stops at version 6 (2019-02-03) - a static snapshot wearing freshness fields.

1. Confirm history is out of scope before trend work. Chrome publishes no historical version archive and Play shows only the latest changelog.

1. Match access method to volume. Apple's API serves one JSON object per app, up to 200 results per call at roughly 20 calls per minute - bulk tracking needs scheduled collection.

1. Read the terms per surface. Google's Terms prohibit bypassing protective measures and require honoring robots.txt; Apple's API needs no key.

These entries cover the wider record these fields live in: the full attribute set published per app, and the single-date capture pattern that makes freshness fields misleading on frozen snapshots.