baja_yu

I agree with you, but with the HIG as well. This depends on the type of the app greatly. It makes sense for apps like utilities and such (Weather app for example), where the launch screen provides a nice transition from launching to launched and usable. Consider replacing the standard launch image (empty list/grid) with same empty image with branding like Apple logo. When the app completed launching the image would roughly transition from the logo to the actual UI. In that case a launch image according to HIG makes more sense.

Now games are a whole different ball game. They're what the documentation refers to as "immersive" apps and as such require a more rich graphic experience, plus are usually more resource heavy and require more time to load all the resources. This is when you would need a splash screen. But those reasons are precisely why you should NOT use the launch image for it. First, it's just a plain static image, but more importantly, it's in the exact moment of the app lifecycle where you shouldn't be doing anything processor intensive. This is before didFinishLaunching method returns (I know Duncan knows this in his sleep but I'm writing everything out for others that might find it useful :) ). So what's a better approach here is to make a separate "dedicated" splash screen using a view controller that will be used to do the heavy lifting regarding resources, and the launch image would be a transition from launch to the splash screen, and when the splash screen finishes what it needs to initialize the game, you can proceed to the main menu.

You wont be rejected because of it, but technically, that's the complete opposite of what you should use the launch image for. Here's a piece from the docs:

Display a launch image that closely resembles the first screen of the app. This practice decreases the perceived launch time of your app.

Avoid displaying an About window or a splash screen. In general, try to avoid providing any type of startup experience that prevents people from using your app immediately.

The point is to use it as transition to give a perceived instantaneous launch of your app.

More details here: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/UEBestPractices/UEBestPractices.html

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/WindowsViews/Conceptual/UIScrollView_pg/NestedScrollViews/NestedScrollViews.html

You would just place them in separate directories as most likely your strings and nib files are, under en.lproj and fr.lproj There are more details here: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/CoreFoundation/Conceptual/CFBundles/BundleTypes/BundleTypes.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000123i-CH101-SW7 specifically under the last paragraph: Localized Resources in Bundles

You can't do that. Maybe you could with a jailbroken device and private API, but otherwise no.