Apple won't let me show my app

There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize the app store review process for but this isn't one of them.

Apple is protecting their users and the overall browse experience by enforcing consistency in listings.

Your app's screenshots don't really show in the first three screens when they really should, these are the ones that will show up in search, at least until we can add full banners w/ iOS 27.

There are all sorts of creative ways you could layer in the paper aspect behind a device mockup across two screens which would both show your app and its paper output.

Perhaps have the paper on a desk and the phone at an angle on top of it, showing the screens.

Remember you don't have to explain what's where on the paper, just communicate its value and that your app is the way the user gets to it.

"The majority of the screenshots should highlight the app’s main features and functionality. Note that splash and login screens are generally not considered to show the app in use."

I agree with the feedback. Fix your screenshots (and whatever else is clearly not in line with app store guidelines).

I'm going to take the side of Apple on this one. Looking at the screenshots I have no idea what the app does.

Screenshot 1: A sheet of paper next to a phone. Is it printer bridge?

Screenshot 2/3: Calendar and Reminders. Is it a to-do compiler that pulls from sources that already exist on the device?

Screenshot 4: A phone with a date picker. Ok, what about the last day of the month?

Screenshot 5: Print your daily plan. We're finally getting to what the app does, I think.

Screenshot 6: A phone with a screenshot of prompts. I'm lost again, are you an LLM?

Two of six screenshots show the app. So the rejection fits the rules and is easy to understand. I often agree with complaints that Apple's rejections are unclear or problematic, but this isn't one of those cases.

And I'm kind of confused by these screenshots as well, since there are lines between them, as if they're one screenshot. And the labels over the screenshots are nonsensical and graphically glitched.

Looking at what is on the website and in the App Store, I still don’t have a good understanding of what this app even does. It prints something based on your calendar and some self-help prompts?

App Store rules aside, since this app has no free trial, it should be easier for a potential customer to understand what this app is attempting to be.

I'm assuming the images on the current listing are the replacement: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wiseday-mentor-yourself/id6752...

These are so much more clear. The first image shows the core concept that this generates printable schedules to go on A4 paper, and the very next images shows the print dialog in the app itself. Instantly, I know what this does. Apple pushed you towards a much better app pitch page! I'm interested! This is a really neat idea.

Tangential, but I work at a company making POS systems so we end up with a lot of weird knowledge about receipt printers. Past ~year or so, I've set up a little web service at home that prints out my calendar on a receipt printer near my coffee maker early in the morning so while I'm getting up and still groggy, I have a little schedule for the day ready to skim over. By far, my favourite weekend project ever. A couple weeks ago I got it printing out a sudoku puzzle (just baaaarely fits on 80mm thermal paper) on weekend mornings! If you could somehow get this rendering the templates it prints out in ESC/P byteslop (it's a confusing standard) in addition to rasterized documents, that could be neat! In terms of cost-to-print, muuuuch cheaper for a daily-use thing. The main thermal printer companies have iOS libraries you can drop into your app, or you can just send the bytes directly to it, netcat style. Always surprised that just works... sometimes.

For what it's worth, I haven't seen any significant increase in the app review times, contrary to what the article suggests. My app updates are normally reviewed within 24 hours, rarely 48; just as Apple promises. Not sure if they hired more reviewers, introduced more automation, or did anything else, but they are keeping up well enough.

I know it's their job, but gotta feel for these app reviewers who must spend day after day reviewing ai generated apps. The only way to prevent this is to gatekeep that developer license with a higher base fee. Of course the review process was painful before, but it's only gotten more clogged and opaque.

Pour one out for anyone whose job has pivoted to reviewing ai output, science journals, literary journals, teachers, OSS maintainers.

It's posts like these that make me very unempathetic to developers who complain about Apple. I'm looking at the screenshots, and I can't understand what the app does nor how the new screenshots are representative of app functionality. However, despite having unclear screenshots, the developer blames Apple's malice when they just want to maintain a standard for users. For many of these developers, Apple is just a bully that stands in the way of them from scamming users.

> > Issue: The screenshots do not show the actual app in use in the majority of the screenshots. Screenshots should highlight the app’s core concept to help users understand the app’s functionality and value.

This is the first thing everyone learns when they look up the requirements for App Store screenshots.

You got it wrong, but they provided a clear and actionable path to fix it.

I’m with Apple on this one. The requirements are clear and you missed them the first time. It’s an easy fix. I don’t see why this warrants a clickbait blog post, other than to try to generate some viral outrage marketing for this app.

You aren't showing your app. You are just showing your marketing materials by shoving them into the field supposed to have pictures of your app... apple is rejecting them because they are not pictures of your app.

Looking at the images, I would have rejected it from the App Store also. I can’t tell what the app is trying to do, you’re trying to communicate too much and you can’t see the actual app easily.

What does "won't let me show my app" mean? Does the author mean that it's just getting rejected, or is he unhappy about the screenshot situation specifically?

I don't think "X The Everything App takes a long time for review" is a useful point of comparison, Elon Inc. isn't sending their best.

Open your app in the iOS emulator and push the screenshot button. Upload that. What you have now is marketing material.

If you're ever in the position this developer is in where

"Communicating the idea has always been difficult for this app, and I am happy with my latest attempt through the new screenshots I created."

Then your app either has no value, is too difficult to explain the value, or your communication skills are poor. Whatever the case may be, this might not be the job for you.

Tried with a notes app and failed too. For family usage you might consider TestFlight.

Dude. Not even your blog post is clear enough. I had to right click one of the images and open it in another tab in order to be able to discern _anything_ on the image.

> It is now taking longer to get our app approved than it is to build the actual features.

You see, this is really kind of key to the whole thing. Who is doing the actual work now?

".. in general do a great job of keeping app quality high."

Huh?

I once wrote a similar blog post when Apple rejected one of my games for bogus reasons.

Then out of frustration I deleted the submission and re-submitted with no changes except a new version number - that one was approved.

Deleted the blog post lol.

Over the following years I would learn that the App Store review process is random. It depends on who you get. Sometimes the reviewer seems mistaken about things and reject it, and on the other end sometimes they approve a build that has bugs, as if they didn't test it at all.

One time a reviewer accurately caught iPad issues. Apple reviewers love iPad. Make sure your app works on all modern versions.

Also once you get approved the first time, that app will usually get easily approved after that.

For games: They are very unlikely to play through a whole game and find bugs later on (a problem IMO), but they are more likely to use surface level menus and things on a regular app, so in some ways it can be easier to get a faulty game approved where regular apps are held to higher standards.