Apple 'Surprised' By Developer Frustration With Its App Review Process

[Confused Vorlon]

Back in the day (like, the first couple of years the App Store existed) it could be pretty painful getting all your certificates and such set up correctly. But now days, Xcode does everything pretty much automatically and it's far far easier.

that is true for 'standard' apps, but as soon as you start including plugins or helpers it often becomes a massive pita.
throw in some catalyst action and it gets worse.

no argument that it is better than the old days - but there are still some really annoying sharp edges. For example, I lose a day every couple of years trying to get developer id signing working again on my mac app which includes a separate executable to do video transcription.

 

[azentropy]

As a developer you of course want things less stringent, but as a customer you would want things more stringent. Too much junk is already let through IMO.

 

[billk711]

As a non developer I am very frustrated with the lack of M1 macs iOS/iPadOS apps.

These developers need to stop having a whinge and make their apps available for the mac as well.

The developers can't stop whining, they feel the need to let people know they develop apps. I guess developers think they are special. Don't understand most apps are complete garbage

 

[billk711]

As a developer you of course want things less stringent, but as a customer you would want things more stringent. Too much junk is already let through IMO.

Apple should just make apps,
Apple apps are always superior anyways.

 

[bryce13950]

The biggest cause of stress in my life is trying to get an app reviewed in time to meet deadlines. I have had apps submitted more than a month before an event comes up where the app is needed, and have then not gotten it approved for the App Store until a couple days before the event. How can Apple possibly believe that people enjoy their review process?

 

[billk711]

Wow.... talk about tone deaf.

These developers are so tone def, so the developers realize customers buy apps,
The devs act like they are god but so far from it. Hey devs put out quality apps please, so sick developers and their in app purchases, they complain about apple being greedy,
Why can't customers complain about devs being greedy but devs complain about apple.

 

[ipponrg]

Apple should just make apps,
Apple apps are always superior anyways.

If you recall, they did only have 1st party apps when iOS first started. Then they were criticized for their apps being limited. They opened iOS development to 3rd parties, and that is when iOS became a much larger success. Apple 1st party apps (i.e. not part of an acquisition) are rather limited compared to their counterparts

 

[EdT]

As a developer I can confirm it is like fighting/talking to a wall. Communicating with an Apple reviewer is really a disaster sometimes. It depends a lot on who is 'examining' your app.
Also, the reason for rejection is often very vague (or plain stupid). It also happens that when your app is rejected, you offer your app again the next day without changing anything (except build number) and suddenly it is approved.

You may have just said the quiet part out loud and I hope that there isn’t anything Apple can do to link your post to your developers account.

 

[Ubuntu]

really? they surprised? how about when Apple says we've found something suspicious in your app but we will not tell you what and after many back and forth emails and call they just say - we don't want to see you app in our appstore. How we can understand your review process, Apple?

Oh man, I remember when they wouldn’t approve a client’s app because it wasn’t working with their ipv6 network. We did everything, including making our own ipv6 network with a Mac but couldn’t reproduce the issue. Trying to get information from them was impossible.
Then we asked the review team “have you tried another WiFi network/device?” and boom! App approved, no apology for wasting three weeks of our time and money when the issue was on their side. Seriously.

 

[Confused Vorlon]

I know these developers just don't get how lucky they are apple invented the iPhone and App Store, where would all these developers be with out apple.

speaking for myself - I was making a great living selling apps for the Palm Treo before apple came along!

 

[rpmurray]

Apple 1st party apps (i.e. not part of an acquisition) are rather limited compared to their counterparts

Apps acquired by Apple also have a tendency to become dumbed down and limited. There have been some good apps that Apple bought and then made useless or abandoned when nobody bought into their minimalism after they striped out all the useful features.

 

[Confused Vorlon]

As a developer you of course want things less stringent, but as a customer you would want things more stringent. Too much junk is already let through IMO.

This isn't a simple more/less slider.
Most developers would like to see junk/scam/copycat apps removed/denied
But we're mostly all frustrated with the dumb rejection reasons.

For example - I built a mac app a couple of years ago to turn on dark mode at dusk and turn it off at dawn.
Simple, all 'kosher' APIs.
Apple made it (virtually) impossible for me to publish that app. It only eventually went live in a completely impractical user-hostile, hard to use way.
Then a year or so later - apple introduced that feature to the os...

Other apps have been rejected when I literally copied the subscription signup page from Apple's own apps (in a naive attempt to do the right thing) - and was rejected for nitpicking meaningless reasons about the subscription page being unclear.

Most developers will have a bunch of these stupid stories.

 

[wanha]

The App Store is trash

No.

 

[NMBob]

I know these developers just don't get how lucky they are apple invented the iPhone and App Store, where would all these developers be with out apple.

About the same place Apple would be without them.
Can‘t we all just get along?

 

[Mr Beardsley]

I worked for a cable company on their video streaming app. Our content contracts explicitly forbid streaming outside of the US. We only had our iOS app for sale on the US store with explicit instructions it had to be reviewed in the US. Every couple of months we would get rejected because the app was "incomplete". After a ton of work to figure it out the first time, we discovered they were reviewing our app in Ireland and India. Fortunately, we were a big enough company to have some pull and a call to our rep usually got things back on track. Whenever you hear Apple say they treat all developers equally, they are full of it. Large companies and very popular apps get preferential treatment.

The sentiment from all the companies I have worked for, is they hate having to deal with Apple. That is developers to senior management.

 

[needsomecoffee]

The problem with app review is that the scam apps get through with no issues. You see them at the top of the download charts with their $9.99 weekly subscriptions, scammy paywalls and thousands of paid shill reviews. App review lets them through with no issue. The apps get cloned and you have 5 of the same exact app from multiple "developers" running the same scam. Reporting doesn't work, the only thing that does work is creating a small uproar on twitter.

Then legitimate developers get rejected for the nit-pickiest details from the most obscure App Store policies.

I noted before that my hope is that the current dev lawsuit against Apple leads to a discovery request about this awful consumer practice to which Apple is apparently blind. Quite some time ago another developer (I believe) wrote a well researched post about how Apple allows fraudulent subscription apps to exist to the severe, SEVERE cost of customers who are duped by the app dark patterns. The apps only try to trick users to click on link to charge very high monthly sub $$. They do not even try to provide a real service after this. It is absolute fraud enable the Apple's App Store sub practice.

This was quite a long time ago, and I thought perhaps Apple had curtailed this. But your comment makes me think not. And the estimate of what Apple made from turning its head and allowing consumers to be really and truly hurt by this is a lot. Likely their 30% take is many billion$$ by now, maybe tens of.

My experience with the App store is that it is somewhat like Amazon. When one wants to install a known and highly regarded app (product), one must carefully search for it among dozens of others that have similar names offering the same functionality. Consumers must be really careful. Thanks Apple/Amazon.

I worked for HP in an area where what we produced had a huge impact on consumers and the environment. I saw top-line decisions made often that hurt one or the other, or both to ensure top-line growth. Sometimes I think Corporate Finance exists just to ensure those whose motivations are not always focused on the TL get b**ch-slapped in meetings when they suggest something in favor of consumers and the environment at the expense of the TL (even when margins are 35%+). Tim Apple I am very convinced is a TL master, and believer ('shareholder fiduciary'). All else is show from Apple ('brand management'). And, of course, he's been very, very successful. Apple apologists can always point to shareholder value (ignoring negative spillover costs), and there is no way to argue with them as Apple's TL and shareholder value are the best.

That is my invitation for Macrumors to flame away at this point. Have fun.

 

[Confused Vorlon]

Fortunately, we were a big enough company to have some pull and a call to our rep usually got things back on track. Whenever you hear Apple say they treat all developers equally, they are full of it. Large companies and very popular apps get preferential treatment.

yup - solo developer here. I don't have a rep I can call.

 

[mikethebigo]

Guys these are lawyers dealing with a government investigation. What do you expect them to say - “we know it sucks”?

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Is it illegal to lie to a government watchdog group? If not, it should be, because Apple is certainly not surprised by any frustrations. At least, they wouldn't be if they spoke to even a single iOS developer.

I don't know a single developer who developes iOS apps because of Apple's review process and policies, usually it's despite Apple and their shenanagins.

 

[daniesy]

They could get rid of 80% of junk apps and no one would notice,
They should do a developer rating, so many crappy useless apps out there.
Apple should make all their own apps,
#1 would be better
#2 don't have to listen to whinny developers

This is the funniest sh.. I read in a while.
Apple's apps are better? I'm really lol-ing.
What app is better?

Apple Maps?
Apple Music? Heard of Spotify?
iMessage? )
iMovie?
Pages? ))))))
Ok, Safari looks cool on the Mac, but it's 10 years behind Edge and Firefox.

Most apps made by Apple are so dumb and feature lacking I can't even take you seriously. They couldn't develop a decent keyboard in 10 years. Most people install Facebook, Google, Spotify, and Microsoft's apps the second they unbox their phones.

 

[jonnyb098]

Apple's arrogance lately is getting gut wrenching. It's a very different company. Stuff just "doesnt work" anymore. Including what developers clearly feel is a mess of an app store process.

AND APPLE IS SHOCKED!!!!

 

[KENPHOTO]

I am am the director of a small (6 staff) Australian based app development company and I have to say that overall, I have never had too many dramas or issues with app reviews. I have 5 apps that I update almost weekly, and have been doing so for the past three years, so I have gone through a lot of app reviews in that time. 90% of the time, my app updates are approved within 12 hours (60% of the time within 8 hours). Once in a great while, as other people have said, I will get a rejection for something that has been approved 100 times before, but when that happens, I just self reject the build and resubmit it the next day and it gets approved without issue. The few times (and I mean like maybe 10, tops) that I have had to actually fix something and resubmit a build, I have not had any major issues. It is always stressful when a build gets rejected, especially on a new app, but overall I just have not had the problems that people are complaining about here. I also made a submission to the ACCC in this case saying exactly what I have said here. For all the complaints I see people have about Apple and the App Store, like most developers, 65-70% of my app sale income comes from Apple. When a consumer purchases an iPhone or iPad, they are (or should be) well aware that it is a closed garden App Store and always has been since they first launched the first iPhone. Not sure why people complain about it when they could just as easily go and purchase an Android phone and use the Crapsung store or some other store if they wanted to. Google allows other App Stores and to be honest, no one uses them, most developers just use the Google Play Store.

 

[richpjr]

I worked for a cable company on their video streaming app. Our content contracts explicitly forbid streaming outside of the US. We only had our iOS app for sale on the US store with explicit instructions it had to be reviewed in the US. Every couple of months we would get rejected because the app was "incomplete". After a ton of work to figure it out the first time, we discovered they were reviewing our app in Ireland and India. Fortunately, we were a big enough company to have some pull and a call to our rep usually got things back on track. Whenever you hear Apple say they treat all developers equally, they are full of it. Large companies and very popular apps get preferential treatment.

The sentiment from all the companies I have worked for, is they hate having to deal with Apple. That is developers to senior management.

Had the exact same thing happen to the company I work for. Our app is built for a specific US market and makes calls to an API to access data and the test instance of the server that is used for our app submissions kept rejecting calls during the review of an app update. After a lot of investigation, the app reviewer was making called from India, which was geofenced out of access to the server. I don't care where anyone is based, but the vague feedback in the rejection gave us no hints as to what the issue was and it was painful to debug.

But that isn't the worst "random rejection" we had - I once had to submit a video of one of our apps running to the reviewer. I have no clue why as we never had to do that before or after that one time. The app was approved without any issues after that. We still scratch our heads as to why.

 

[KENPHOTO]

Had the exact same thing happen to the company I work for. Our app is built for a specific US market and makes calls to an API to access data and the test instance of the server that is used for our app submissions kept rejecting calls during the review of an app update. After a lot of investigation, the app reviewer was making called from India, which was geofenced out of access to the server. I don't care where anyone is based, but the vague feedback in the rejection gave us no hints as to what the issue was and it was painful to debug.

But that isn't the worst "random rejection" we had - I once had to submit a video of one of our apps running to the reviewer. I have no clue why as we never had to do that before or after that one time. The app was approved without any issues after that. We still scratch our heads as to why.

I have had that happen before, I think it is for those instances where the reviewer is not able to access a function in the app due to location. Easy enough to send a video.

 

[cupcakes2000]

This is the funniest sh.. I read in a while.
Apple's apps are better? I'm really lol-ing.
What app is better?

Apple Maps?
Apple Music? Heard of Spotify?
iMessage? )
iMovie?
Pages? ))))))
Ok, Safari looks cool on the Mac, but it's 10 years behind Edge and Firefox.

Most apps made by Apple are so dumb and feature lacking I can't even take you seriously. They couldn't develop a decent keyboard in 10 years. Most people install Facebook, Google, Spotify, and Microsoft's apps the second they unbox their phones.

Apple maps is vastly superior to Google maps if you consider privacy a priority.

Apple Music is great, Spotify is great- very little real difference between the two.

iMovie and pages are fine for what they are- free basic apps. What’s the problem? There are better apps than these by both 3rd party devs and Apple themselves.

iMessage is pretty well respected, and safari is hardly ten years behind anything, especially iOS. Ridiculous thing to say.
I for one have no interest in putting any Facebook, Google or Microsoft apps on my phone, and take a great deal of time vetting any other third party apps I may install.