7 ms·

Average App Store Review Times

35 points by turrini 9y ago

k-mcgrady 9y ago
It had been a couple of years since I last submitted an app until this week. I was amazed. Within 24 hours I'd been rejected (app is UK only so they had some questions as they're testing in the US), had a few back and forth's on the resolution centre (all answered in 1 hour) and I was on the store. I think it was less than 36 hours. Crazy how much better it is. I remember being thrilled when it was 4-5 days (down from 10-14 days) a couple of years ago.
- jjeaff 9y ago
  Ya, 14 days was a nightmare. We had a severe bug causing a crash. Just had to tell our customers, "sorry, the app is basically useless for the next 14 days or so. Whenever apple decides to approve our single line of code change". I believe there was an emergency option which got us approved in 10 days or something equally ridiculous.
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    Are current review style better for the ecosystem? http://blog.mowowstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2048.png http://blog.mowowstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2048... The amount of clones, copycats and unreliable apps that works nothing as shown in the screens made app store discovery impossible, to the point many people has to mediate trough review websites
- giarc 9y ago
  Phil Schiller came in and changed quite a bit. I remember going from 7 days to 1 day. I didn't know the change had happened and I submitted an app then planned to forget about any work on it for a week. When it came back in a day I was surprised.
rubicon33 9y ago
The fact that there is a review time at all nowadays is ridiculous. The claim I've heard from Apple is that they have a review process to ensure the quality of the apps on the store, but we all know that's a joke. As far as I can tell, it's there to make sure Apple gets their cut of any revenue generated in your app.
- leesalminen 9y ago
  That's exactly what the "review" is for. I've heard so many stories of apps getting approved when there are obvious bugs that lead to a crash.
  - mwfunk 9y ago
    Like what?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- juskrey 9y ago
  "Review" is mostly running Apple's internal analyzer tools on your app, and definitely not testing all of your screens.
joshribakoff 9y ago
I dislike the whole app store process in general & can't wait until web apps are mainstream. First you have to download 5GB xcode even if you're just packaging something like a Cordova app. Then you have to login to Apple's developer center & manually upload (or you research 3rd party tools that automate this with unofficial APIs) Then you have to wait anywhere from 1 day to 2 weeks for the app to be approved, then you notice a typo & start all over. Luckily there is a way around this when using hybrid apps, by having your app hot load new JS & HTML.... Meteor does this. Ionic Deploy does this. You can also do it yourself in a few lines of code. Its great being able to just fix a typo & deploy instantly. It is allowed since its considered content updates & not code updates. However you still need app store updates sometimes, like adding a new permission for your app.
- threeseed 9y ago
  Those hybrid apps have been tried for many years. Users hate them. They are slow, clunky and often do nothing more than just display some static content the same way a web page would. It's actually the type of applications Apple has indicated are going to be banned from the store over the coming months.
  - untog 9y ago
    I wonder about this. I suspect people think webview apps are bad because the only apps you know are in a webview are the ones made badly. A properly integrated webview is imperceptible - I've read that Apple uses them in various parts of iOS, and I only ever found out that Instagram uses one for their activity feed when a buggy release had the CSS missing. More broadly, I wish Apple would implement more webapps features simply because a lot of people can't afford to make native apps for every platform. Yes, they're inferior to bespoke iOS apps, but they're better than an app that doesn't exist at all.
  - Illniyar 9y ago
    "It's actually the type of applications Apple has indicated are going to be banned from the store over the coming months" What do you mean by that? can you elaborate?, I haven't heard of any such thing and am very interested to find out more.
obilgic 9y ago
I guess this explains those spammy apps.
penpapersw 9y ago
The review times have gotten better and overall the process of going from "New Project..." to "Ready for Sale" is much smoother than it was 10 years ago when I made my first iPhone OS app. But the market is pretty hard to get into. You can add real value with a well-executed unique idea (like we did with Bubble Maker, look it up) but unless you're a big name or an established player, there just seems to be no chance of getting your foot in the door.
- megablast 9y ago
  > is much smoother than it was 10 years ago when I made my first iPhone OS app. The app store has been around for less than 9 years. > App Store was opened on July 10, 2008
  - ihuman 9y ago
    Its possible that penpapersw did development for jailbroken iPhoneOS 1, or just rounded up to 10 years.
superasn 9y ago
More interesting was a blog post sometime ago about how scammers are still able to game the app reviews and dupe people. Has that been fixed now? I've never submitted an app to App store but it must be infuriating to know that your legit app is being constantly rejected while a fake virus scanner or battery optimizer is making 100k a month.

35 points by turrini 9y ago

It had been a couple of years since I last submitted an app until this week. I was amazed. Within 24 hours I'd been rejected (app is UK only so they had some questions as they're testing in the US), had a few back and forth's on the resolution centre (all answered in 1 hour) and I was on the store. I think it was less than 36 hours. Crazy how much better it is. I remember being thrilled when it was 4-5 days (down from 10-14 days) a couple of years ago.

jjeaff 9y ago
Ya, 14 days was a nightmare. We had a severe bug causing a crash. Just had to tell our customers, "sorry, the app is basically useless for the next 14 days or so. Whenever apple decides to approve our single line of code change". I believe there was an emergency option which got us approved in 10 days or something equally ridiculous.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  Are current review style better for the ecosystem? http://blog.mowowstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2048.png http://blog.mowowstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2048... The amount of clones, copycats and unreliable apps that works nothing as shown in the screens made app store discovery impossible, to the point many people has to mediate trough review websites
giarc 9y ago
Phil Schiller came in and changed quite a bit. I remember going from 7 days to 1 day. I didn't know the change had happened and I submitted an app then planned to forget about any work on it for a week. When it came back in a day I was surprised.

rubicon33 9y ago

The fact that there is a review time at all nowadays is ridiculous. The claim I've heard from Apple is that they have a review process to ensure the quality of the apps on the store, but we all know that's a joke. As far as I can tell, it's there to make sure Apple gets their cut of any revenue generated in your app.

leesalminen 9y ago
That's exactly what the "review" is for. I've heard so many stories of apps getting approved when there are obvious bugs that lead to a crash.
- mwfunk 9y ago
  Like what?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
juskrey 9y ago
"Review" is mostly running Apple's internal analyzer tools on your app, and definitely not testing all of your screens.

joshribakoff 9y ago

I dislike the whole app store process in general & can't wait until web apps are mainstream. First you have to download 5GB xcode even if you're just packaging something like a Cordova app. Then you have to login to Apple's developer center & manually upload (or you research 3rd party tools that automate this with unofficial APIs) Then you have to wait anywhere from 1 day to 2 weeks for the app to be approved, then you notice a typo & start all over. Luckily there is a way around this when using hybrid apps, by having your app hot load new JS & HTML.... Meteor does this. Ionic Deploy does this. You can also do it yourself in a few lines of code. Its great being able to just fix a typo & deploy instantly. It is allowed since its considered content updates & not code updates. However you still need app store updates sometimes, like adding a new permission for your app.

threeseed 9y ago
Those hybrid apps have been tried for many years. Users hate them. They are slow, clunky and often do nothing more than just display some static content the same way a web page would. It's actually the type of applications Apple has indicated are going to be banned from the store over the coming months.
- untog 9y ago
  I wonder about this. I suspect people think webview apps are bad because the only apps you know are in a webview are the ones made badly. A properly integrated webview is imperceptible - I've read that Apple uses them in various parts of iOS, and I only ever found out that Instagram uses one for their activity feed when a buggy release had the CSS missing. More broadly, I wish Apple would implement more webapps features simply because a lot of people can't afford to make native apps for every platform. Yes, they're inferior to bespoke iOS apps, but they're better than an app that doesn't exist at all.
- Illniyar 9y ago
  "It's actually the type of applications Apple has indicated are going to be banned from the store over the coming months" What do you mean by that? can you elaborate?, I haven't heard of any such thing and am very interested to find out more.

obilgic 9y ago

I guess this explains those spammy apps.

penpapersw 9y ago

The review times have gotten better and overall the process of going from "New Project..." to "Ready for Sale" is much smoother than it was 10 years ago when I made my first iPhone OS app. But the market is pretty hard to get into. You can add real value with a well-executed unique idea (like we did with Bubble Maker, look it up) but unless you're a big name or an established player, there just seems to be no chance of getting your foot in the door.

megablast 9y ago
> is much smoother than it was 10 years ago when I made my first iPhone OS app. The app store has been around for less than 9 years. > App Store was opened on July 10, 2008
- ihuman 9y ago
  Its possible that penpapersw did development for jailbroken iPhoneOS 1, or just rounded up to 10 years.

superasn 9y ago

More interesting was a blog post sometime ago about how scammers are still able to game the app reviews and dupe people. Has that been fixed now? I've never submitted an app to App store but it must be infuriating to know that your legit app is being constantly rejected while a fake virus scanner or battery optimizer is making 100k a month.