App Review rejection 10.6 | Hacker News Reader

App Review rejection 10.6

stefankendall.com

You chose to develop on a platform that has unaccountable bureaucracy with arbitrary rules controlling your access to the platform and can turn all your work into garbage on a whim, with no recourse to you. So you shouldn't be surprised too much when it happens to you - that's what they do.

I'd just make a website and be done with it. Unless you want to sell it, and then they own the market - it's their rules. You either play by them or don't get into the market.

I don't like your "you chose this so don't bitch about it now" viewpoint, because I think that bitching about things is something that effects change, but I agree with you on one thing: Why the hell isn't this a site? It sounds like it would take ten minutes to convert the info to a single HTML page, and you wouldn't have to go through the app store.

Not to mention that Google would give you instant visibility to everyone for your chosen search terms, if there's no other page with this info.

+1 to this idea. If it's simple enough, it shouldn't be a big deal to turn it into a mobile website.

There are already plenty of websites with this information. Perhaps OP wanted the information available when offline?

I have yet to see a case where bitching about Apple apps rejection policy effected change. I admit though I since I feel very little interest in developing for iOS platform in its current state, I don't watch the developments in this area closely - so maybe it did happen. Do you know such cases?

Here's a link to the app on Github: https://github.com/stefankendall/pokemon-type-calculator

This is exactly what I was looking for when playing through Pokemon X/Y! My current method of searching on google to grab the bulbapedia article then scrolling through to find type information (which isn't always there for brand new pokemon) was far too slow. I'll probably keep this running on my iPhone simulator when I play X/Y.

Personally I would have preferred this in website form, but that's only because I'm always in front of a laptop.

Things that would improve the app:

1. A status bar on the main listing. I like having the status bar there if possible to see battery and time and such, but more importantly it would allow the tap to scroll to the top shortcut.

2. Slight bug on the detail-page: you can select a type (e.g. 'bug') but it doesn't go anywhere.

3. Color labels on the types, like most pokemon websites have. Right now I find it a little hard to scan the type listings because it's all text.

4. Maybe make the details page title the name of the pokemon? I think that would make it alot more obvious what I'm looking at (not a concern when you're coming from the search page, but when you've left the app on the details page it's a bit disorienting).

5. This is a much bigger feature request, but seeing type weaknesses would be great, too. When deciding whether or not to use or catch a pokemon it's useful to see strengths/weaknesses.

I'm almost done with X, so I'm not sure if I'll use this much (have been thinking about doing a Nuzlocke run); if I end up using it I'll submit some pull requests. Thanks for making it open source!

Edit: Critical bug

a. If you click the search bar, then tap on the table view before the search bar animation completes, the search bar disappears: https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.hipchat.com/1658/151914/gkv...

b. It looks like Aurorus doesn't have any type information provided

I threw together a quick team type effectiveness page a while back:

http://cssdeck.com/labs/full/typechart

It's not very pretty, and a bit more complex, but it has auto complete.

I haven't added the X/Y pokemon yet, but I'll do that soon. Also, it appears the type chart has changed so the calculations need to be updated too, so I'll have to fork it instead.

If anyone has a easy to parse list of the new pokemon types, I can update it easily. Bulbapedia's terse list format isn't updated yet.

This is the most intense v1 review I've ever received. If I get approved, I'll definitely incorporate this feedback.

I had some issues with the data. I pulled 1-649 from Wolfram, but it was missing a handful of pokemon that I had to enter by hand by regexing an HTML page from Bulbapedia.

I've been playing kind of competitively with my friends, and scanning bulbapedia wasn't cutting it (and it's missing the type weaknesses for some pokemon for whatever reason)

It's possible your app got rejected entirely because you didn't provide a launch image (formerly known as Default.png).

I'd echo the concern that the status bar should be visible in your app.

Another polish item: rows in the detail view controller get a selection highlight when you tap them, but don't do anything.

Apple also looks to see if there's a way to provide user feedback within the app, so you might want to add something for that.

One addition that would be nice is incorporating damage-altering abilities: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Category:Abilities_th...

I had this happen on an app I worked on before, but it was accepted on appeal.

From what I have seen in the App Store, I think standard procedure is to reject "basic" looking apps like this as a matter of process. The thinking is that rejecting them weeds out the spammers who won't bother appealing the rejection, and people who actually appeal are obviously more emotionally invested in the app, which leads to a higher chance of being accepted.

I think this is the best way to think about it. Just don't take it personal and appeal / resubmit.

So basically, they have implemented greylisting?

They are actively trying to discourage "10 minute to write fart apps"

It looks like you may have looked like you fit in the category of "copied a web page into a tableview, hit publish"

It's a very bland looking app. Add a few more features, give it a nice colour theme, throw some icons in there.

Get used to it. As a developer for iOS, you have to be ready for seemingly arbitrary rejection. It's part and parcel of the App Store submission process.

This seems like a good example of where a website targeted for mobile interfaces would have been best.

For that, we need a mobile web app discovery platform that everyone knows about (and how many of these have been tried?) and can take people's money for you. I think if one of these had a few million for advertizing, there'd be a chance. (For that matter, how many people actually have looked at chrome app store more than once?)

For better or worse, the default app stores are convenient.

When the iPhone and iPod touch were released, that was exactly the solution Apple went with. They hosted a directory (www.apple.com/webapps) where everyone could submit their iPhoneOS optimized web app to be listed. Many of the web apps used local storage and you could save the shortcuts on your Springboard, just like native apps.

When the App Store came along, that directory became a wasteland. In June, Apple shut it down completely.

Apple’s iPhone User Guide was one of those web apps. Nowadays, it’s just a PDF.

Given that newer mobile OSes are going the route of web apps only, perhaps Apple was just 8 years too early with this concept (I wrote ‘8 years’, because I think we’re still 2 years off from mobile web apps being capable enough to rival basic native apps in speed.)

Unless the user might find this information useful without an internet connection?

Websites can work off-line.

This type of webapp is simple enough to use AppCache without trouble: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/HTML/Using_the_applica...

This type of Web app is simple enough to not require any storage at all, really...

Then you can use local storage

People aren't trained to use websites that way, unfortunately.

Ahh yes, the great rift [between websites and apps].

It's too bad information isn't more medium agnostic yet!

I am constantly surprised by people who don't understand it is in Apple's and their customer's interests to keep the pool of applications on the iTunes Store as small as possible.

At this point, to prevent quality from being lost in the long tail, Apple's default response should be rejection, and only the most novel of applications should be accepted.

Was Stefan's app actually rejected by Apple or something? That's what's implied by the title but the post itself makes no mention of it.

> App rejection. Sometimes it's legitimate, and then sometimes it's this

That is the first line of his post. I guess this means his app got rejected.

The 'this' he's referring to is a quote from Apple's submission guidelines. I'm not just nitpicking; I was hoping there'd be some interesting information here, like maybe an account of his interaction with Apple regarding the rejection, but what I actually read was a vague post about how Pokemon apps shouldn't play Pokemon sounds or something.

That's what I was thinking. Sounds more like a rage against the existing app that doesn't match up to the expectations set out by Apple.

It looks like he submitted the link to HN so I would assume that is the case.

This is just some web view type data copied into a table view. And if we're going to trot out f-words, let's just note that it's fugly. I'm not surprised it was rejected.

You see "fugly", I see "an application that looks like iOS 7 applications tend to look."

The incidence of both of these may be on the uptick, but that's no reason to toss out abject insults. It's a data-driven application that looks like it provides data, and that is fine.

Besides, why bother with submitting this as an "app" considering it could just as easily be a webapp..

My thought was the same, but the I assume the point is that if you're playing somewhere without an internet connection, this could be handy.

I recently had an App rejected too under 10.6 because they said it needed to use more of iOS' features.

I replied back letting them know, that the App was greatly enhanced by the multitouch interface, and asked if they had any suggestions. The App Store reviewer was actually very nice (almost excited that I wrote back?) and reasonable. Their biggest concern was actually relating to lack of iPad specific features/views on the iPad version. It seems Universal apps are reviewed a little more harshly.

I think they have a lot of rules, and sometimes it's hard to keep up the manual review process when they don't see the immediate value of the app. In general, they are quite nice however and will let you know what they are thinking.

For what it's worth I opened sourced the rejected app anyway https://github.com/dmitric/tap-pad-ios

You know, there really should be a better way of contesting rejections. I'm surprised at how often we hear this same type of story of rejection.

OK, hold on... Stefan is offended by Apple's frank language, and then calls a competing app a "steaming pile of trash"? At least Apple is somewhat impartial.

I'm glad Apple rejects on a quality basis, and feel they should be even stricter.

I say this as someone who has gone through over 30 Apple rejections, including some due to really bad policy. But in the end I feel it made my apps better, and led me to respect my customers more.

Edit: that said, this app doesn't look bad, but it is using entirely default settings — perhaps just using a custom tintColor on the window would have got it through.

Yes. Changing some background colours seems like it would add a lot of value to the app...

Not even the background colour — just the tint colour, which is supposed to be chosen to suit your app. The OP has left the default blue tint colour in his app.

Giving an app a key colour adds value in the same way a unique and distinctive icon adds value.

I understand that you may view apps as purely functional, but I don't believe Apple views them this way. Given the vast number of apps, both functionality and design quality are important. I happen to agree that they should reject poorly (or undesigned) apps from their store, I only wish they would be more picky.

From the review guidelines:

* If your app is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.

...just sayin :-)

I made an app called "Foto Lock" which allows a user to choose a photo from their camera roll and disabled the ability to swipe to the next photo -- which would prevent those awkward moments of someone seeing a taboo photo.

Apple rejected it under the guidelines it provided no value or was too simple. I don't have the exact verbiage, but I can get it when I'm back at home.

They suggested I add more features... Yes my app was simple, but it solved the exact problem many people have.

Here's a video of it: http://www.fotolockapp.com/

FYI: it was posted a fews days (weeks?) ago but Wolfram|Alpha has Pokemon data now. Example:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=charzard

It has holes, and it stops at 649. If you check out my other repo, you can see how I pulled out a lot of the type information.

https://github.com/stefankendall/pokemondatacollector

There's an API limit of 2k requests/month, which worked just about perfectly for my ~800 API hits while grabbing the data :)

It looks like your app only displays data that is probably copyrighted by the pokemon company (heh, I didn't even know that company existed). I doubt that it was rejected due to simplicity.

Facts can't be copyrighted, and the trademarks of pokemon names can be used w/o permission if properly acknowledged.

I'm not a pokemon expert, but I think they are the product of a human's creative work. If pokemons were real there would be facts about them. I'm not a lawyer either, but I think creative works are covered by copyright law.

There was a lawsuit over a guide to Harry Potter that Rowling won, but she won it because the guide copied too much from her books. They were later able to publish it by cutting down on the quotations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._and_JK_Rowling_vs...

The courts acknowledge that reference guides to fictional worlds are either non-infringing or transformative fair use. You can't copyright fictional facts either, only the expression of them.

It doesn't matter if the facts are about reality or fiction. If I say 'There are 1234 notes in that Beatles song, and C-F-G-C chords are often seen there' then it doesn't matter that the song is product of a human's creative work, the facts are not that creative work.

If I say 'hobbits in Tolkien's work have hairy feet' then again, Tolkien made that fact up, it didn't exist before his writing, but it's still not copyrighted or 'copyrightable'.

Copyright is about copying the actual prose or drawings from Pokemon, but stating the facts about that prose or drawings is allowed.

"Name Charizard, Types fire/flying, electric 2x rock 4x water 2x" etc. don't at all sound like "facts" to me. They seem to be the core of an individual pokemon, they are what makes that pokemon a unique creative work. This sounds more like publishing the chords of a song, it's melody and lyrics, but not using the cover art.

Anyway, the fact that there's even a discussion about this is proof enough that apple did good to reject the app. It's not apple's job to have a team of lawyers review apps with regard to the intricacies of copyright law.

Pokemon (and I assume all their stats re: them) are owned by Nintendo.

Incorrect, they're owned by the Pokemon Company

I bet if you add some graphics such as the pokemon and add a background, you'd get accepted.

or rejected for alleged copyright infringement.

LOL maybe! Nintendo isn't really that big on tracking that stuff down though.

That's not the Nintendo I've known over the decades. They are very big on stopping copyright infringement and piracy. Just look at the recent Full Screen Mario copyright claim.

Oh I didn't know they acted on that.

Does Bulbapedia not work very well on a mobile or something?

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Charmander#Type_effec...

That Pokedex app is $1.99 when I checked. Not $26.

> That Pokedex app is $1.99 when I checked. Not $26.

You need to look at the IAP:

* Kanto region Pokémon $5.99

* Sinnoh region Pokémon $5.99

* Hoenn region Pokémon $5.99

* Johto region Pokémon $5.99

Those, combined with the initial price, equals $25.95.

Aha, my bad. Sneaky!

Still, it could have been made a little more obvious. Some people may only care about Kanto. That still means it's $8, but anyway.

Because of iAP purchase (https://sensortower.com/ios/us/the-pokemon-company/app/poked...) the pokemon app is $26

There are a couple of alternative ones: https://sensortower.com/ios/us/caleb-thorson/app/oak/7179849...

https://sensortower.com/ios/us/derk-adams/app/pokegear/60289...

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