App Review process updates
developer.apple.com
developer.apple.com
I saw another developer today say their app was "rejected" because the reviewer asked "How does the app utilize Touch Bar and where can we locate these features?"
This kind of crap happens all the time, and I don't see anything in this announcement that will help. App review is just plain incompetent and terrible.
This was in an app for managing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
I made some trivial change and resubmitted without issue. I'm still annoyed by that.
Wow so this isn't even 'new' on the Macbook... I had no idea the gen 2 carbon did this...
I really hope they release an Apple Silicon MacBook still without Touch Bar.
The fact that Touch Bar is a "premium" feature, yet many folks would pay MORE to NOT have it, shows you that Apple merely doesn't want to admit the defeat, because there'd be plenty of people who'd pay more just to get the newer hardware without giving up the physical keys.
P.S. The same actually goes for the oversized Trackpad on the latest 2019 MacBook Pro 16" as well: I've enabled Tap to click on MBP16 as on all my prior MacBook laptops for years, and I'm getting phantom clicks everywhere all the time now; it's really annoying, and one of the reasons why 16GB Quad-Core 2020 MacBook Air 13" is on the only decent MacBook out there, even if you have an unlimited budget to spend -- I wish they'd at least offer more RAM on it, if that's their only actual professional machine at the end of the day!
If people want the touch bar, fine, have a separate SKU for that, but at least give those of us who want a real keyboard the option to have one.
It feels to me like Apple should have taken an "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" approach. There was, and is, nothing wrong with a traditional keyboard, yet for some reason they decided that changing something so fundamental was a good idea. In fact I would probably be less miffed if their systems came setup with Dvorak, at least it's possible to argue reasons why it was a good decision.
From your link:
> I'd recommend BetterTouchTool and things like finger swipes for volume up/down and brightness up/down and showing things like Spotify.
That sounds less good than function keys. If that's the best pitch for the touch bar, that is the very definition of damning with faint praise.
Had an app reviewer when my app first launched, who was complaining that 2FA was failing for them, so they couldn't allow the app to go live.
I was livid. It had worked for EVERY beta tester.
It turns out it was 100% the tester's fault. It "mysteriously" fixed itself. Aka, they realized that the 2FA was via email instead of SMS and finally after 2 weeks of back and forth, passed the app.
Did they learn a lesson, or just you?
There needs to be real competition in the mobile app distribution space because this is absurd.
It's usually impossible to establish a two-way UDP "connection" between two peers that are both behind NAT. This varies depending on the type of NAT. If just one peer is behind NAT you can typically establish the "connection" using NAT hole punching. If both peers are behind NAT you may need to proxy the UDP packets using an intermediary server.
There are protocols for hole punching, such as ICE (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8445), but you can also roll your own - if you control all endpoints.
"Connection" in quotation marks because UDP is a connection-less protocol, but the NAT port mappings that are established are sometimes referred to as a connection.
We have the same issue and have never been able to get our macOS app approved (not a big deal but... annoying).
So many of our updates were first rejected by a reviewer in the first round for bogus reasons and after escalating them were quickly approved. With both of those steps taking a few days each, this made updates on iOS such an annoyance that we put it on a slower release cycle than Android.
A code scanner will be run that examines the system calls and makes sure that it isn't using internal/undocumented APIs that may cause the app to fail when the operating system is updated.
And yes, this is done for every app and every update. Free and paid. Yes, it requires a crazy amount of manpower.
This is also something that introduces a human component to the review process - it is possible to get someone who misinterprets how the app is working or how a particular rule is applied to the review of the app and human mistakes can be made.
Friends have seen the same problem, with different bogus API violations reported.
Apple's made themselves the sole arbiter when it comes what software is allowed to run millions of people's phones, so I'd hope so!
Imagine the bureaucratic nightmare that would erupt from automating that process, and the businesses that will live and die based off of an automated filter deciding whether or not their products can be sold to users who want them.
Google is doing that right?
It's probably exacerbated by the lack of sideloading and alternate app stores on the platform.
The reply below should be flagged and moderated for completely unacceptable behavior.
This kind of arrogant behavior really makes me mad.
Nothing about Touch Bar is required in the App Store guidelines.
It's too bad that there isn't real competition on iOS app distribution.
This might not be an Apple policy, as much as a reviewer just holding the app maker hostage until they get their personal feature request approved.
Recently, Apple started rejecting our white-label app because allegedly we are breaking their "3.1.3(b) Multiplatform Services" guideline. As per the guideline, if a business is selling digital content on other platforms that’s accessible inside the iOS app then those items should also be available as an in-app purchase on the iOS app too.
This was very surprising because we always thought personal training services to fall under the category of "goods and services" and not digital content. And as per guideline “3.1.5(a) Goods and Services Outside of the App” we aren’t even allowed to use in-app purchase selling services.
But Apple reviewers disagree that our app falls under the “services” category. According to reviewers, since clients are getting "digital value" from the app we therefore must add an in-app purchase to the app.
We are ready to add a free tier to the app. But that is a no-go solution. We must add in-app purchases of some kind to get the apps approved.
The "3.1.3(b) Multiplatform Services" guideline does not make sense. You can use the same guideline to force any for-profit business that offers anything useful inside an iOS app to add an in-app purchase. How is this even allowed?
By the same reasoning apps built for physical therapists, doctors should add in-app purchases too?
And why is Uber not giving a 30% cut? Their customers do get digital-value inside the app.
Not sure if this new change can actually help us.
It’s not shocking at all. Corporations pull this kind of shit constantly.
And if the only way to get in-game coins was by buying stickers off-app Apple would say you have to offer buying them in-app too as an IAP.
That's right. Huge multinational corporations famously don't like money.
In some cases yes. The whole concept of 'Innovators Dilemma' is built on this fact. Squeezing an extra million here or there is a waste of Apple's time at their scale. It doesn't move the Apple revenue needle. Getting WP or some fitness app, even in aggregate to give 30% of a subset of customer subscription does nothing for Apple except hurt their brand. It probably actually costs them money from losing brand value.
Google OTOH pays Apple billions to be the default and/or first position on the search list. That's why we're unlikely to see an Apple search engine anytime soon.
And in our case adding IAP will surely make for a poor user experience. How a fitness business can serve users that sign up for an in-app purchase from anywhere in the world. A personal trainer can't help everyone. They have a specific niche and specific type of people they can and want to serve.
I think the "digital service" is the app itself because you only get access to the app if you're paying for a personal trainer. So I guess they want you to support buying the app directly not as part of a personal trainer package even though I'm guessing nobody would actually do that.
It definitely seems like you're running up against the rule meant to prevent "buy a coffee and get in-game coins free as as way to get around the 30% cut."
The personal training business has a high marginal cost and unlike games or other digital services, the value can be unlocked immediately after in-app purchase.
I feel the marginal cost of a product should determine what qualifies for this guideline. But for now we are in limbo.
It would be really useful for me to pay my copays with Apple Pay for telemedicine, for what its worth. I'd love this as a feature.
But that is not the issue..
See I go to physical therapist for my shoulder pain and get home workout on my app. Apple is saying that you can't deliver home workout unless you add those home workouts are also available as an in-app purchase.
The breaking point for me was when the reviewer refused to allow my minor update in because it “crashed” in an unreleased minor OS update that I literally could not acquire at the time. I removed my app from the Mac App Store the same day and haven’t been back.
It is a petty, pointless, and infuriating experience, which wouldn’t bother me so much if it wasn’t abundantly clear how much trash still makes it into the store and how inconsistent they are. I recommend that everyone use the “suggestion” box to suggest removing App Review entirely.
The second reason certainly sounds infuriating, but it's odd that the reviewer had access to an OS update that you didn't. In general, a crash on the latest OS update is a good reason for rejection because you're going to have to fix it sooner or later anyway. Better to fix it now rather than have to come back to it later.
“These options are usually visible, but can be hidden as a group, such as......, or individually disabled, such as when a full-screen app can't be minimized. ...... A title bar should be visible, but can be hidden in an immersive app like a game.”
Either way, this wouldn’t be in the top 1000 reasons for someone to request a refund for a game on the store so why is Apple even concerning itself?
That's true, but how do you fix a bug you can't reproduce with an unreleased patch you can't acquire, which is probably the same for the general public?
There has to be some flexibility here.
But if you're trying to close a window that you didn't want to open, you probably want the red button not the yellow one.
If what you're trying to do is move a page from its own window to another window, you can drag its tab. But that's not possible if you have "Show tab bar" disabled in the view menu, the tab bar will be hidden for windows with a single tab.
Alternate workaround if you find yourself accidentally opening things in a new window by accident frequently: instead of right clicking and picking from the menu, command-click on the link to open it in a new tab. If you have a 3-button mouse, middle click will do this as well.
I still have the “open in new window” item there when I long-press a link. It now does absolutely nothing if I hit it by accident. Which feels inelegant but is a lot better than “oh fuck I just made another goddamn new window when I wanted a new tab”.
This is the only winning move.
Is it the App Review process’s role to be the arbiter of what is and isn’t good UI?
Should it be the App Review process’s goal today do this?
No, it should be the Human Interface Guidelines' role to be the arbiter of what is and is not good UI.
> Should it be the App Review process’s goal today do this?
Yes. Who else is going to do it? Apple doesn't want half-assed, misbehaving apps on their store, so they enforce it at that level. It's unfortunate that such a small detail hung up an update, but a deliberate change was made to the app to remove fundamental functionality that should exist, for no reason that I can tell. Sounds like this is exactly what the process is for, and it sounds like it worked.
When it comes to standard OS conventions, like the minimize button, yes. I hope they would also reject a missing “Quit” menu item. Hurts accessibility to not follow standard conventions.
Apple certainly sees their role as being some sort of QA gate, and this would fall under that to some extent.
As their customer, that's part of the reason I prefer to use some of their products, yes.
Not necessarily as an arbiter of good vs. bad UI, but if they have some clear and explicit UI requirements that are generally agreed to be the baseline UI requirements for an app to be accepted into the App Store, I am all for those requirements to be actually enforced.
They aren't asking for some arbitrary and vague things in terms of UI design, like "the flow of the app should be intuitive and cohesive". They are asking for very basic things like "your app should be minimizeable". It is a very explicit and clear requirement with pretty much no room for ambiguity.
Yes, obviously it is. If you're asking "should it be?", that's debatable, but I have no problem with that either.
Probably not worth paying 99 USD/year just to make such a suggestion.
Just for those folks who aren't aware that you actually have to pay Apple every year for the "privilege" of having your app submissions rejected for such random reasons -- even if your app is entirely free and non-commercial.
Why didn't you do those things? I've been in similar situations many times and made poor decisions. In my case, I made those poor choices because of poor mental habits and low emotional awareness.
About 5 years ago, I started spending effort to increase my EQ and mental habits. I consulted a therapist regularly for several years, read Marshall Rosenberg's Non-violent Communication, learned meditation at a free 10-day silent retreat, and talked with people close to me about my emotions and mental habits. I occasionally ask people close to me for feedback on my attitude and behavior. All of this effort as paid off. Compared to 5 years ago, I have more stable relationships, fewer and shorter arguments, fewer days lost to playing unhappy mind-movies, and more work productivity.
I urge you to invest more effort in your EQ skills.
EDIT: s/same situation/similar situations/
It took literally 2 minutes to upload the update for immediate release on Steam (previously set up / approved). [...Oh, except it didn’t, because nowadays Apple makes me wait 15 minutes for their unnecessary Notarization upload to complete. 17 minutes is still faster than App Review though.]
I want to spend my limited free time on things I enjoy, such as actually making software. And at a certain point, it does not matter if there are 5 different workarounds for Apple-imposed problems; what matters is that Apple-imposed problems drain an unreasonable amount of free time and energy for insufficient benefit.
We know from court documents that exactly these sorts of developer concerns have been discussed at the highest levels of Apple's leadership and they have consistently failed to make any meaningful policy changes. What Apple is offering now is merely an official process for disregarding this sort of criticism.
I’m sure anyone who is considering investing significant effort or resources into products built on Apple platforms will be completely reassured by this gesture – especially knowing how receptive Apple has been to criticism of its policies in the past.
This press release reads to me like “Here’s Your Complaint Form, Jerk”[1].
[1] https://slate.com/technology/2010/07/apple-s-condescending-i...
As Tim Cook said it's not all about the bloody ROI.
For example, they could require that the models depicted in app store screenshots are visibly diverse in all locales.
They could require a certain level of screen reader or even color blindness affordances.
They could require that the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of the software be listed on the app store page.
Disclose which companies' telemetry software ships in the SDKs of the apps. List their UBOs.
Require apps to disclose their in-app marketing budget. I guarantee you this would correlate strongly negatively with app quality.
Many radical ideas.
This is satire, right?
Doesn't this disadvantage smaller developers from countries less diverse than the United States?
They could make virtual currencies show the real price if they were bought with real money. They could require 'free' transactions with virtual currencies to go through the same payment authentication.
They could make subscription apps require an ongoing service or value being added, aside from fixing their own bugs or trying to improve their software to attract new customers.
Require apps to disclose the average amount of in-app purchases per user.
Queue up the lobbyists.
There are a lot of overly zealous people in all companies.
> the investigation has confirmed that Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook are all abusing their market power to the detriment of consumers
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/26/antitrust-investigation...
Out of all the issues with the app stores, this is not one IMO.
Honestly I would say it's pretty lazy to provide screenshots depicting a device where the app can't even run.
I wonder if Sony will let me put a picture of an Xbox One on my PS4 game.
The problem is not one of monopolies - the problem is that a set of private companies - including Apple - control critical digital infrastructure. This digital infrastructure is required by almost all other companies and people to function, yet it is in private hands, and they can do with it as they please.
Imagine if all roads were owned by a small number of private companies, and you would need their permission to use the roads. That is what is happening in the digital world right now.
I wish people would stop conflating Apple as a monopoly - their have their own platform (one of many widely available) and many people choose to use it.
Do I agree with all their App Store behaviours? Obviously not, but it doesn't make them a monopoly. They're not 'abusing' their power - the App Store has always been this way. It's a way of delivering sand boxed apps that fit guidelines.
Apple aren't going to stop you downloading an app off the internet and running it on your mac anytime soon.
How long did it take them to approve you after you properly communicated your enthusiasm for Apple products?
I know everyone reads the problem stories, but for the large majority of cases the App store rejection/fix cycle is detailed and easy. For us, it's usually a doh! on our part, fix and resend.
The worrying position would be if Apple demanded special features for the iOS version of the app, or if they asked you to get rid of the Microsoft version altogether. If we got to a point where stories/rumors like that started to emerge, that's when everyone would be in trouble.
Come on....
It wasn't a picture of the app running on a Surface. It was a Surface depicted within the app itself.
(At least sometimes, sometimes they do good. Through always in a way which is especially profitable in one way or another for then.)
We are in the robotic manufacturing sector, and also we have a lumber mill for some reason.
> You aren't forced to publish in the app store.
If you don't pay $100 each year to Apple, macOS will treat your app as if it is radioactive. If your users don't know the magic security ritual to run un-notarized apps is, the app will just appear to be broken.
> You can still disable Gatekeeper.
Yes, if you're a power user. Apple is removing the ability to easily run un-notarized software in future macOS releases.
> There's still nothing technically stopping you from avoiding Apple policies.
Apple's literal technical limitations for distribution and execution of applications for apps that can't make it through Apple's approval process for notarization prevents users from using the applications they downloaded but Apple doesn't approve of.
In practice you can't really expect to distribute free or commercial macOS software without paying the $99 anual fee. Even outside the MAS.
Non tech users don't even understand what Gatekeeper is or how to disable it. Most will think an unsigned app is a virus or whatnot.
Even in Catalina you need to open the terminal to enable the "everywhere" option and disable gatekeeper. I'm sure this is only going to get worse from now on.
> Additionally, two changes are coming to the app review process and will be implemented this summer. First, developers will not only be able to appeal decisions about whether an app violates a given guideline of the App Store Review Guidelines, but will also have a mechanism to challenge the guideline itself. Second, for apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues. Developers will instead be able to address the issue in their next submission.
Sounds good, but Apple still can just simply say no.
- such created by accident weather it's because of suboptimal rules, vague formulation or reviewers give mad with power
- such created intentionally to control the platform in all reasonable and unreasonable ways
I believe Apple does try to fix or lesson the burden of the first for the benefit of everyone including them.
But they won't do so for the second reason where you most likely still get a no even if they are acting unreasonable.
At the same time they now can point to this and say "see we are all fair" even if they are not.
Apple stretched out the review process before rejecting the app, and after I escalated to tcook's email address, I received a call from their team telling me my app took "measurements the Apple Watch was not designed to support".
This, of course, is complete BS since the whole point of generalizable sensors and Apple's ML tools is to build apps to add new capabilities to the device, otherwise all we'd have are map and messaging apps. And it's slightly comical that they added the feature to detect hand washing in the newest WatchOS, something the Apple Watch "was not originally designed to support". I'm fairly certain they didn't want to have any part or apparent liability for the app if it "didn't work correctly", nevermind the app did not mention COVID, disease, or anything else controversial.
There was always a way to "escalate" or "appeal" a review, so any new processes are smoke and mirrors. Apple will always reject whatever they want to reject until they're forced otherwise by a regulatory body.
And so their review "guidelines" (how smart of the apple to rename terms of use that apple can change for any company to nonsense) are all slanted to that. All their marketing lingo about fairness is all just plain bull shit.
If you hit a wall with the reviewing process all your iOS/WatchOS code now becomes worthless. It doesn't matter how much dev time you're invested into the project.
Previously it was “hey, I’m blocked because you said I violate this rule. But I don’t really because X”
One is saying a reviewer messed up, another is saying the guidelines are wrong.
Apple has copied the features of the best apps to compete with them [1]
Apple is accused of ranking their identical apps higher than the competition [2]
Apple appears to have no shortage of healthtech related patents [3][4][5]
Given the propensity to compete with existing apps and features, it might not be a stretch to prevent them too.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/05/how-app...
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/23/20707323/apple-app-store-...
[3] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/04/apple-w...
[4] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/biometrics/
[5] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2019/12/apple-w...
Build on open protocols.
We don't care, we don't have to, we're Apple.
By the end (and the website doesn't show the latest screenshots since I gave up updating it after getting the run around for weeks), it was even so neutral it didn't make a claim that touching your face was even good or bad. You could have interpreted it as a trainer to touch your face more if you wanted.
I'm really not surprised that Apple is wary of an app that with the current sensors can at absolute best guess when you're touching your face. Because if/when it doesn't really work it just makes the watch look bad.
The sensors will never be 100% accurate for anything, and my app was never portrayed as a way to prevent you from touching your face. If it worked 50% of the time and helped you notice when you touched your face and helped build that awareness, then it fulfilled it's goal.
Is that what they said?
We sent our comments to the reviewer and never got an answer back. A couple of days later we appealed to the review board and the update was accepted in a matter of hours. Not sure what happened there. Our guess was that maybe Apple was testing some kind of automated process that failed.
I don't remember the details, but we were using UDP features in the app and the permissions were related to being able to receive and send UDP packets.
This is good news. We've had instances in the past where a critical bug fix was delayed because of a completely unrelated and minor issue with the update (for example: issues with the store listing content that was approved in previous updates but now rejected).
This was a bad experience for everyone involved. Obviously for developers, but I'm still not sure how much Apple cares about that. But more importantly for users, who may be stuck with a broken or unsafe app for another day or more for relatively trivial reasons.
I think this change is made in good faith by Apple. Of course there are always bad actors who may try to game it, but overall it should improve the process for developers and users.
The change, as I understand it, is that today the policy goes into effect.
This has an exception that still wouldn't allow Epic's games to remain in store:
> bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues
This is false; the new policy dates from today and Epic's ToS violation was several weeks ago. This policy is clearly in response to the negative publicity and the judge's ruling barring Apple from ending Unreal Engine access on iOS.
I am not sure "they sued Apple" counts as a "legal reason" for blocking the app. Not giving Apple a cut of sales isn't illegal.
(Note the judge during the TRO hearing felt both companies were being stubborn here, as whether Epic removed the payment method or Apple allowed the app, the winning company to get back their monetary impact upon the conclusion of the case. Keeping the app off the store is "making a point" more than actually protecting any revenue on either side.)
There have been a slew of high-profile App Store "altercations" over the past weeks/months, and Apple is an ongoing concern with it's own roadmaps and release schedules; who already announced policy changes were coming WWDC2020.
If this announcement was a month ago ppl might think it was Hey.com related, for example.
My guess is it still work well for all accidental friction but won't help at all with friction Apple put in place intentionally.
Through if the appeal goes through a different person then the reviewer it might help with unreasonable reviewers (which Apple isn't probably to happy with either as they are prone to create bad PR)
99.9% of users have no clue how their phone works, they won’t know how their iPhone got hacked, and they will blame Apple.
It will reduce a big differentiator between iPhone and Android costing sales.
For developers bad publicity from these events will make their customers more gun shy about buying and installing apps.
My mother doesn't care that I can install a 3rd party app on Android, why would my grandma on iOS?
I sideload a YouTube Vanced - like app on all my devices
There are workarounds being worked on for this - one being AltStore [1] (does not allow arbitrary IPAs yet).
You can also sideload on Windows/Linux with Cydia Impactor[0] - on Mac you can use either impactor or xcode/CLI tools to sign IPAs.
Also good luck loading anything like an alternative OS.
A layer on youtube³ however says throughout multiple videos that epic has a (if even)very weak case and apple is in the right.
I would be interested to have someone break it down to understand the case.
They conceded this utterly pointless problem they invented for the developer. Developers have been arguing against these for years, stupid rejections were once so common that Apple threatened against revealing them to the press in the official guidelines [1].
It's yet to be seen if they will cave on any issues like emulators, or apps mocking President Xi, or Xbox streaming, or external billing, full web browsers, transparency about their transaction fees, porn etc.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20141226094343/https://developer...
I would like to be proved wrong though.
Or what exactly is a legal issue?
You release version v1.0, with something that's borderline under Apple's policies. Apple approves it.
You release version v1.1, with just bug fixes. Apple decides what you did in 1.0 wasn't OK after all, so you can't release your bug fix until you're removed whatever apple thinks is noncompliant.
This happened with Hey, for example.
We sell a business tool, once the business account is upgraded, the rest of it just pay per seat linked to that org. All our sales are done over the phone, so we don't need to accept payments in app. We never ever tell you in the app how you can upgrade to the premium version. We never even link to our own damn website out of fear of Apple's wrath.
About 1/4 of the times we submit big fixes or feature updates we lose the game of Apple Review Roulette, and get denied. So we have to do an appeal and explain it all, again, and so far at least, the 2nd tier always approves it.
Practically, it just means that everything we do with Apple, you have to plan for it to take 2 weeks
I will never, ever, work on apple software again.
A bugfix to Fortnite.
New violating behaviors and existing violations behaviors that had previously been flagged would prevent the update from being approved.
This was a big complaint that DHH was making for the Hey email app.
Hey couldn't push a new bug fix update in the timeframe it took to mitigate an existing complaint regarding outside subscriptions. So they had to keep a buggy app in the App Store in the meantime.
I asked what model iPad and they just replied with ‘13.6.1 on an iPad.’ We started digging further.
We ran it on Xcode 12 (beta) and reproduced the problem.
I asked if they were testing on a physical device or the simulator. They directly denied that... but said the issue had cleared up and we were passed.
No code change of course... so tell me how this magically ‘cleared up’? Frustrating
In the bigger discussion, we don't know if "difficult" cases like the ones in this thread are common, if the approval process is used against whole categories of apps, if competitors are being harmed, or perhaps if it's more about fine-tuning user experience, and bad developer experiences are rare.
Right now, there are many awful stories (and many successful apps), and we don't know how long companies and developers spend trying to resolve problems like these. If the App Store is the modern market for software, the lack of transparency is a big issue, and developers would feel more comfortable making a multiple-year investment to bring a product to iOS if they could see what's likely to happen in advance.
Unfortunately the "Provide Feedback" (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/tell-us/) page reads:
"We’ll be back soon."
No more comments...
I don’t have any proof of this, but I have a suspicion that app reviewers may need to meet some sort of rejection quota. It would certainly explain some of the frivolous rejections I’ve seen. Reviewers must be evaluated and held to account by some standards, so it doesn’t seem too far fetched to think that some sort of rejection ratio may be applied, or at least tracked somewhere.
If this is the case, it’s not necessarily an easy problem to solve. How you you enforce a consistent quality bar without using some reviewer KPI/metric that’s inherently flawed? This being said: rejecting apps for menial reasons does not seem like the right compromise to make.
The occasional genius mistake doesn’t the undo the many, many interactions they get right, go the extra mile, and help customers beyond specific warranty limitations.
I just released four apps over the weekend, and one of them was like "guideline ping-pong," until I got it right.
Usually, I am forced to agree with them, but every now and then, I get a true Whiskey Tango Foxtrot one.
Anyway, after reading the comments here, I am glad I am not supporting this mess.
Big brands won't have to worry as their downloads will pick up the week after, though it will piss off some of their customers.
It will however create a massive, international PR storm over the issue, and every press outlet in the world will be talking about it widely.
If the PR is well messaged and coordinated, it can be made into an anti-trust populist issue, which will hit the vein of some Democratic lawmakers who may in a couple of months be empowered to move on it.
tl;dr Because of the broken App Store review process we've just removed 3rd party auth support from our app, which is a shame because it's a really slick sign in experience, but we don't want to deal with bugfix releases being held up in review.
A different take:
I don't think App Review would exist on a competing 'App Store' on iOS. Fundamentally, if any review took place at all, it's going to be automated only. I don't see any competitor being able to withstand the cost of having humans review Apps going into their stores, nor do I see any players who could afford it have an incentive to do so if they can just push users to an App Store they don't have deal with in this way.
For instance, I couldn't find any indication that the Amazon AppStore has any human intervention for the reviewing of applications submitted [0][1], and not without issues[2]. Notoriously, Google is automating everything they can about the app review process, across both Google Play and The Chrome WebStore[3][4] and its a dumpster fire[5].
Comparing this to the iOS App Store, its at least a league cut above the rest here, and there are many justified criticisms and problems with it as well.
I think what we need is firm transparency of app store policies, and frankly I think App Review should include more about what code is exactly the issue (or at least, what APIs aren't being used correctly, or what have you), and give specific, detailed examples, rather than often undetailed responses that help nobody through the submission process. The hostility here is the problem, as with other issues that are re-occurent recently, I think Apple wins by providing more transparency and less opaque in the process. I don't know if the consumer really wants an alternative app store (I know developers do, but thats really not the question at the end of the day, if Apple suitably changes course on managing the existing store)
I don't think its competition thats the problem, as we've seen on Android, it doesn't show merit that this actually makes things better, or that consumers are really interested in having this competition in the space.
[0]https://developer.amazon.com/docs/app-submission/understandi...
[1]Granted, I read through their docs, and I never saw any reference to a "reviewer". Everything about this makes it sound like an automated API that runs a bunch of tests, responds back to you with failures, rinse and repeat. Not saying this is bad, but its worthwhile to consider, perhaps [2]https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/07/amazon-appstore-game... [3]https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/faq#faq-gen-08 [4]https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/02/15/tasker-briefly-disa... [5]https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41111992/google-play-and...
What a language! How could "guidelines" ever be "violated"? Rules? Injunctions? Yes. Guidelines? No.
Rules is too harsh certainly, so let's use guidelines instead. But since the underlying meaning does not change, words lose connection to reality.
We think we are creating a softer and kinder world, but the opposite is true. If a guideline is actually an order, what's an order?
"off-nominal"
Not that Android is better, but at least they aren't marketing it.
That's if you have a lot of throwaway money and you don't like charity.
Ideally rules would be clear and objective. Maybe there are cases where Apple could be better about that, but it's not always possible. For example, one of the rules is to select the appropriate category. I can't imagine how you'd write a rule that perfectly defines proper categorization. Another example is that apps must "use power efficiently", but good luck completely defining what is too wasteful or what is/isn't a worthwhile use of battery power.
but since one of the definitions (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guideline) of "guideline" is:
> an indication or outline of policy or conduct
imo "guideline violation" isn't too far of a stretch even if it is technically a "policy violation".
It's a commonly used expression, there's nothing wrong or strange about it. An example:
This seems like a non sequitur...is Apple claiming this why their use of the word "guideline"? If so, can you show that?
Booster?
Go flight!
Retro?
Go flight!
FIDO?
Go flight!
Guidance?
Go flight!
Surgeon?
Go flight!
EECOM?
Go!
GNC?
Go!
TELMU?
Go flight!
Control?
Go flight!
Procedures?
Go!
INCO?
Go flight!
FAO?
Go flight!
Network?
Go flight!
Recovery?
Go flight!
CAPCOM?
Go flight!
Apple App Review Process?
<crickets>
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Launch Control this is Houston...
We are f&#*d...
If you need to be grumpy, well, be grumpy. I've had enough challenges in life to learn that you have to take things seriously but, at the same time, not miss the opportunity to laugh about it a bit when appropriate.