Um...for those of us who were using Macs back when it wasn't clear how much longer Apple would be around—and especially for those of us involved with web stuff—Panic is nothing short of iconic. They're one of the few indie Mac devs who've managed to keep it going for decades, and their work has been consistently excellent.

So if I were Tim Apple, I would be a little worried by someone like Sasser saying "we tried to launch our crazy popular game on your App Store and ultimately didn't because one of your idiot reviewers gave us the runaround." That's a little like, I don't know, some record label passing on Nirvana because a junior talent scout thought that "the guys looked kind of greasy and the name sounds stupid."

Panic are multiple time Apple design award winners/nominees.

(Mac & iOS) [1]

2003, 2004, 2005(x2), 2013, 2021

Perhaps Apple was overselling how good they are? /s

[1] https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Panic

Being on the developer spotlight (https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=t4n6e4wo) kind of indicates they’re a bit more than “nothing very memorable”.

At least, Apple certainly thought so. Not every developer gets a spotlight.

Now I think you may be underselling it a bit. :)