Tough to draw any conclusions from such a small sample size, but maybe Apple should hire more reviewers for the 6 months surrounding a new OSX/iOS release.
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Average Wait Time for Mac App Store App Reviews Rising Significantly
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Tough to draw any conclusions from such a small sample size, but maybe Apple should hire more reviewers for the 6 months surrounding a new OSX/iOS release.
Don't updates take much less time than new submissions?
You can see the raw numbers here: http://reviewtimes.shinydevelopment.com/mac-raw-twitter-data.html
Apple really should "permanently approve" trusted developers once they prove they are trustworthy, allowing app updates to go out without each one having to be approved.
App makers who frequently release bugged updates can lose their "trusted" status. It's not hard!
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I should add that Transmit took over a month to approve the last update. This is a $35 app, too, so it's not a money issue.
App makers who frequently release bugged updates can lose their "trusted" status. It's not hard!
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I should add that Transmit took over a month to approve the last update. This is a $35 app, too, so it's not a money issue.
Mac App Store vs. iOS App Store
My experience this year with the review process:
In May, it took at least two weeks before my Mac application was reviewed. An earlier review in February was closer to one week.
In the past several months, reviews for iOS generally have been in the 7-10 day range.
My experience this year with the review process:
In May, it took at least two weeks before my Mac application was reviewed. An earlier review in February was closer to one week.
In the past several months, reviews for iOS generally have been in the 7-10 day range.
I suspect Apple has been pulling Mac reviewers over to temporarily handle the crush of iOS app updates due to iOS 6 and iPhone 5. It actually kind of makes sense with my experience over the past month and a half.
When I first released my iOS app at the end of August, review took 10 days. Then when I released an update for iOS 6 and iPhone 5 last month, I was shocked that it only took 3 days. Presumably that was due to having many more iOS reviewers on hand, and I must have gotten in before the big rush of updates (mine was about a week after iPhone 5 announcement). Now that some of the bigger developers are submitting their updates, iOS review times are getting longer - my latest update is currently sitting at "Waiting For Review" for 7 days now.
Meanwhile, Mac apps languish in review time hell because they're concentrating on iOS updates.
This seems like a frustratingly common problem with Apple - in many areas of their business, they simply don't have enough good employees to handle the workload in a timely manner. They've got the cash to hire many times their current headcount (while making sure they only get quality talent), but they won't do it. Desktops languish without updates, software like iLife (Mac) no longer gets any useful updates, Mac app store reviews take forever...
And who can blame them? They're printing money like the Weimar Republic.
Why change a thing?
When I first released my iOS app at the end of August, review took 10 days. Then when I released an update for iOS 6 and iPhone 5 last month, I was shocked that it only took 3 days. Presumably that was due to having many more iOS reviewers on hand, and I must have gotten in before the big rush of updates (mine was about a week after iPhone 5 announcement). Now that some of the bigger developers are submitting their updates, iOS review times are getting longer - my latest update is currently sitting at "Waiting For Review" for 7 days now.
Meanwhile, Mac apps languish in review time hell because they're concentrating on iOS updates.
This seems like a frustratingly common problem with Apple - in many areas of their business, they simply don't have enough good employees to handle the workload in a timely manner. They've got the cash to hire many times their current headcount (while making sure they only get quality talent), but they won't do it. Desktops languish without updates, software like iLife (Mac) no longer gets any useful updates, Mac app store reviews take forever...
And who can blame them? They're printing money like the Weimar Republic.
Why change a thing?And yet, I know of developers whose apps are doing better in the Mac App store than in the iOS App store. There's far far less competition in the Mac App store, and the iOS 6 App store is currently causing serious problems with discovery for many types of apps.
I have two apps at the AppStore. And yes, the last couple of months it takes approx. 4-6 weeks before it gets handled.
In my experience the delays got out of hand with the need of sandboxing. Apps get declined more often and have to re-reviewed several times before it gets accepted.
So my guess it is the sandboxing that is to blame (delays).
In my experience the delays got out of hand with the need of sandboxing. Apps get declined more often and have to re-reviewed several times before it gets accepted.
So my guess it is the sandboxing that is to blame (delays).
Of course times increase as a new OS rolls out which requires developers to update their products and means more developers are submitting updates.
Apple makes money on each app sale, so they benefit more from approving updates and new apps faster than before. Loss of developers for Mac App Store means less money for them and less chances of locking OS X down later for customers who just want to go MAS only.
The issue isn't money, it's resources. Apple pulled the OS X reviewers to put on the iOS team to review and approve thousands of apps getting ready for the iOS 6/iPhone 5 updates.
Apple did the same for whenever OS X is released, the review time are instantly cut down to less than a few days whenever it is close to OS X release dates.
It's all a cycle between OS X and iOS release dates.
No, it's not that at all. Look at the iOS updates, they're approved at rates two-three times faster and there are FAR more iOS apps than OS X apps.
As mentioned above, it's the cycle of the iOS/OS X releases. The closer to or from iOS release date, the longer than OS X approval rate and vis versa.
Coda from Panic is at version 2.0.4 now. The Mac App Store has 2.0.2 listed as the current version and it's been that way for 4 weeks. Still no 2.0.3 update, and when that does post it will still be a version behind. This is ridiculous.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Not to mention that Coda was at one point a featured app. It is almost as if Apple doesn't care about its developers...
That was my first thought. Totally lame! The giveaway is that it's numbering is divisible by 7, but any educated fool should know better that to omit this critical information. That's like 6th grade knowledge.
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iOS6 App Store totally SUCKS! Takes forever to find what you're looking for.
A company with $100B in the bank should not have this problem. Apple seems to have a number of internal mismanagement issues. Of course there's a smaller thing to note -- Apple makes relatively little revenue from their app stores, so they don't have much financial incentive to make sure the stores run smoothly. They know the Google app store is no competition for developers right now. But it's no excuse, because ultimately it harms users as much as it does the developers they buy from.
Nice job reading! This is about the Mac App Store....
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That was my first thought as well
Me too
A more reasonable guess is that the recent launch of iOS 6, complete with it's flurry of app updates to take advantage of newer features and full screen updates for the iPhone 5 is temporarily bogging down the review staff. Or, perhaps they're getting submissions at a rapid enough pace that they need to staff up, and are still in the process of hiring and training the new reviewers.
Either of those are *much* more likely than the idea that Apple had people who were trained to do the mapping updates working on app reviews in the first place.
I wonder if an internal debate at Apple about taking away resources from the Mac App store to support the iOS App store. I hope they don't kill it like they are trying to kill their desktop products.
.......... sh**!!
post PC era it looks like. Although whoever went full retard and started that phrase doesnt realize there is no such thing. Only a pre PC era.