Thank you Apple for rejecting my app
nbodyphysics.com
nbodyphysics.com
The Google Play store (and others) already give you feedback - customers give ratings and can provide a comment. This is much better than a central authority dictating what is good and what is bad.
There are many apls that have no need for a great UI - that a perhaps more functional in nature than aesthetic.
The beautiful thing about an open policy like the Google Play store is that you can not just get actual customer (Apple reviewers are probably not your customers) feedback and actually REACT to the feedback by uploading a new version right away... While on Apple Store users have to wait 7-10 days for the App to be "approved" - and if it gets rejected you have to wait another 7-10 days.
It's ironic that the company that commissioned the 1984 ad ended up seemingly irrevocably drawn towards centralized authority and secretive hierarchical decision-making. (They were always at war with Google. Always.)
Apple's beef with Google started when they counterfeited iOS, which occurred while the Google chairman was on the Apple board of directors. (Something I would think would be pretty actionable.)
Apple is not a centralized authority because Apple doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones. The decision making is neither hierarchical or secretive, as they have published the rules, and will cite chapter and verse when they reject you.
I got rejected. I didn't cry, but I was pretty pissed for about 4 hours. It sucks and it's hard not to take it personally. But once I was objective, I realized they were right, I fixed the problem, and got published.
Like OP, I realize they were right.
Given the number of apps I've submitted to the Appstore and the few rejections I've gotten, it's clear Apple is playing fair.
But it is ironic that google fans who never submit apps to the store generate so much grief and noise over Apple's rejections while being mum about googles actively shaping the the entire web to be lower quality.
And unlike Apple, google does have an effective monopoly.
A large number of common rejection reasons are completely subjective and enforced purely at the discretion of the reviewer you get. That sort of rejection is fairly common - I personally had an app that I'd been using daily for months and had people waiting to pay me money for rejected for being "too simple". It's pretty widely known that if you're rejected for one of those stupid reasons, you're better off resubmitting rather than appealing the rejection, since re-rolling the dice is more likely to get you a different reviewer who doesn't care.
Apple's system is better than the alternative (at least in my opinion), but it's far from perfect or "fair".
Imagine this: A designer walks into corporate headquarters of Macy's with his sample garments that he wishes to sell there. He is given the opportunity to talk to a Macy's buyer (the person who selects garments to sell).
The shirt the man shows says "So sO seKsy" on the right sleeve, there is what looks like a mustard stain on the collar (he defends that it is "the beautiful sun", and the construction is terrible- a button falls off while the buyer is looking at it.
Buyer: "I'm sorry sir, this shirt is grotesque in my view. Best of luck to you."
Designer: "Screw you! I'm going to sell it to Target! I'll never shop here again!!"
Note: Not an Apple fanboy, see previous comments, but i do use some of their products
Outright rejection for subjective stuff is just nonsense.
< This whole thing reminds me of the various labels (Your drink is very hot - well duh, I just ordered it!) on things sold to you in the USA which I found very amusing when I first landed! Apple is taking similar approach with their customers whereas Google relies on its customers being somewhat competent and responsible.>
All of this is clearly laid out in their submission guidelines. As is what they expect in a user interface.
They want you to put forward polished apps, not almost-finished apps. As they say in one of the first points in their submission guidelines:
"If your App looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you're trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour"
Yes, this raises the bar for developers, but by doing so it also cuts out a lot of the crap.
The AppStore is already overflowing with apps in every category, and the overcrowding would be even worse if they lowered their submission standards.
Yes it's subjective, but the bar is not set impossibly high, it's set just high enough to maintain a minimum of quality.
Honestly speaking, the changes the OP made aren't exactly the pinnacle of great design either, but they are a huge improvement.
Apple is focusing on the user's needs by ensuring some degree of quality in the apps they use.
There's enough diversity in apps and app design on the AppStore to show that Apple isn't enforcing a single ideology/design style on developers, just trying to maintain a modicum of quality.
> The beautiful thing about an open policy like the Google Play store is that you can not just get actual customer (Apple reviewers are probably not your customers) feedback and actually REACT to the feedback by uploading a new version right away... [emphasis added]
I'm guessing you probably meant it without that not, is that right?
> The beautiful thing about an open policy like the Google Play store is that you can just get actual customer (Apple reviewers are probably not your customers) feedback and actually REACT to the feedback by uploading a new version right away...
Being in the android camp for 4 years I would have loved it if there was some high level review to educate the devs on what's horrible design- the reality is that most terrible looking apps never get any feedback, they are simply ignored.
Some people like curation. They prefer a central authority like Macy's, or Slate, or Trader Joe's, or DNSBL make decisions for them.
Apple is providing a curated shopping center for their customers, many of whom chose Apple because it provides a curated experience.
Can you convince me that people who want a curated experience are better served only when all stores (remember that Google, Amazon, and Blackberry approved the app) have no curation?
I can understand how your view will be better for some app developers. But if Apple's review has no stick, only carrot, can you convince me that it will overall be better for its customers? If they follow your suggestion, what would make their products different from the other stores?
For one, it costs Macy's money and opportunity to put something on the shelf. It costs Apple barely anything.
Web portals have been around for a long time with Flash games (Newgrounds, Kongregate, etc). The best games get voted to the top by customer feedback (ratings and reviews).
It doesn't answer the question, if Apple switched to a more open model, would it be good for their customers? I for one, like that there is some level of curation.
Slate, like most other online magazines, provides a curated experience determined by the editors. These have also been around for a long time, even though it costs the magazine "barely anything" to acquire a bunch of SEO dreck and put it on the shelves as well.
Planet Python aggregates blogs from people who mostly talk about Python. The selection is hand-picked, which makes it another curated experience - even though it could aggregate many more blogs for "barely anything."
I picked TJ's for a reason - where most grocery stores might have 5-10 brands for a given product, TJ's might have 1-3, and likely a store brand. This works because they do more curatation work to find something close to the Pareto frontier. I believe some people go to TJ precisely because it limits the effect of the paradox of choice. This also means customers switch from item brand loyalty to store brand loyalty, which is "bad" for producers of nationwide brands, but "good" for TJ and presumably its customers.
MCRed in this thread makes the brilliant observation that Google's GMail curates the email experience by removing spam - even though it costs "barely anything" for them to include the spam in the main mailbox. People love that curated experience, even though it doesn't help the scammers improve their operations.
Can you convince me that Apple would do better without curation? Not that it could work, but that it would be better?
For example in the interface from this article; Why did he pick a marble background for the buttons? Why that weird font? Why those bezels?
He could just as easily have picked Helvetica (or any other sans serif font really), and some flat colour and gotten a distant but not obnoxious facsimile to the iOS/android designs.
This is really a pet peeve of mine when I see this stuff from my colleagues. It doesn't even have to look great, but your stylistic choices shouldn't be worse than of you had made no choice at all.
The other thing (although not present here) is when programmers pick eye blasting 0xff red and 0xff green for text on a white bg. Just type 0x7f instead and it reads so much better!
This seems to reinforce a pervasive stereotype that Android users are utilitarian while iOS users are much more concerned with aesthetics and form.
The root is probably in iOS users being richer and coming from a richer countries. It's like the interior design of cheap kebab shops and hairdressers vs hipster artisan shops.
You are an Apple user, you are young and creative and beautiful.
You are a PC user, you are mature, businesslike, and successful.
I for one am happy Apple rejects ugly applications. There is no place for them on my phone
I have the unpopular opinion that apple is already too lenient on app quality. I've been rejected quite a few times. In almost all cases the customer was better off for it.
I agree that the Apple app store is better without the ugly apps because there already are so many apps out there. Another poster made a comment about "reviews" and "screenshots." Yes, there are reviews and screenshots, but for some app types having to weed through even what does make it through is very time consuming. So this saves me time from having to look myself. I'm not sure what could allow a more lenient acceptance strategy and help me weed through apps I'm not interested in, but I'd certainly appreciate it!
There are some app types/categories where it would be too bad if an ugly app didn't make it through, but I think in the grand scheme of the Apple app store these sorts of rejections are a positive.
You can create a pretty good (albeit default) looking app by just using the default elements, outside of the actual view that handles the game.
You shouldn't have needed Apple to tell you that looked bad. Games don't have to have fancy UX, it's all about what the game is going to do, look at some other games and see how they do it
However, in effect I did the same as using default assets by buying assets that were ok across platforms.
Mind sharing what you ended up using? I didn't see it on the post (maybe I didn't look hard enough?).
[EDIT]
I just realized the second screen shot is the changed app...
After a quick google search I found stuff like this (the first one doesn't look bad at all): http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/gui-ngui-skins-and-widgets-...
Is that usable?
It's capable of a lot more than I used but I wanted to get this done and go on to the next set of physics ideas.
I am also playing with the Beta of Unity 4.6 which has a lot of the same ideas as NGUI built in. These will make it much easier to make "non-ugly" UIs with very modest effort.
Markets work because lots of different people get to make purchase choices. Their choices become information that feeds into the competitive process. If there's demand for a product, the price offered for it should increase (the manufacturer should be able to carve out larger profits). That should attract competitors, and increase supply, and the competition should help create products that are both better designed and lower priced.
When Apple prevents access to the market, it stops this process taking place. If there's no price signal, there's less incentive for people to compete; the product's niche hasn't been validated.
But you're right, this market is hierarchical, and at a higher level, Apple is just a part of the bigger market. In that market, I choose Android in large part because of how Apple controls their sub-market.
Over at BlackBerry, "OMG somebody wants to publish an App!!"
Which creates a feedback loop in which the store improves in both quality and quantity - unlike WP and Android - sadly.
(The iOS HIG is supposed to be the standard, but strict adherence requirements would remove 98% of the apps on Apple's store.)
In my experience reviewers are very careful to be precise and document, including screenshots, the specifics that cause a rejection.
Having been rejected, none of them were arbitrary. Were you ever rejected?
They have HIG for almost everything.
I also read that a lot of apps are developed on iOS first http://www.businessinsider.com.au/app-design-company-directo.... I wonder if there's any truth to that.
But saying that I know that Google is pressing their Material Design http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti... quite hard lately. Would really love to hear what Android devs think of the Material Design. Are they going to port their current app design to it?
1) A 1-star review from a random user, with a comment saying the app looks ugly.
2) A detailed report with screenshots and a list of places where your app fails to meet basic UI/design principles, made by someone whose job it is to give you feedback so that you can improve your app.
I'll take option 2 every time, and most users from option 1 aren't going to even bother to complain - they'll just not use your app.
Going through 15-60 day review process for that is ridiculous, just like the post in question.
The only one I've ever heard of going anywhere like 60 days was the Gmail app, and that was almost certainly a cycle of rejections; when it finally shipped, it barely worked at all, and tended to crash.