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Comment by seanalltogether | Hacker News Reader

I just used a time based trick when I needed to push through behavior that apple didn't like. 20 days after submitting the app one of the buttons changed it's behavior to allow a "File Open" dialog to go directly to the users root directory.

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I did the same in one of my apps. It's a private app, you need a login code to use it; Apple wanted to test all the features, so I put some fake screens in the app, those screens didn't even make API calls.

I set a timer for two weeks, after those the app started having its real behavior, with API calls and everything.

The whole Apple app review is a joke.

Apple testers no longer demand test credentials to get beyond login walls?

They do. You can detect those of course.

I love it, goes to show how useless the app verification process is.

One could probably find a way of fingerprinting reviewer systems to directly hide the feature only for them.

Uber tried to do this, they geofenced Cupertino for a feature so it wouldn't appear during app review

Does "tried" imply they weren't successful?

The linked post mentions they getting caught after a while.

Seems pretty unreliable. At least I know a recent Google Play Console reviewer was located at the Google office in Lisbon. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple used reviewers outside Cupertino.

Ye we've had apps rejected because they hit our IP geoblock, and the logs would always indicate they were testing via an Irish mobile network.

We specifically allow-listed Apple's /8 range, but they don't always use the corporate VPN.

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