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I think people underestimate how poorly Apple have conducted themselves throughout their app store's history. The iOS developer guidelines used to officially s

I think people underestimate how poorly Apple have conducted themselves throughout their app store's history. The iOS developer guidelines used to officially state: If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps. https://web.archive.org/web/20141226094343/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20141226094343/https://developer... What prompted such a bizarre official policy? Hundreds of cases of Apple unfairly, inconsistently and even stupidly rejecting apps, rejecting appeals, rejecting their own rules, stonewalling developers. All of this is apart from the platform abuse that caused their anti-trust cases. One of Apple's diligent prudes discovered that the Kama Sutra was among the books Eucalyptus could access https://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-app-rejections-2009-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-app-rejections-2009-1... The dictionary app was denied access three times due to "objectionable" words users could find in its dictionary. https://www.cnet.com/news/behind-10-eyebrow-raising-app-store-rejections/ https://www.cnet.com/news/behind-10-eyebrow-raising-app-stor... our app was rejected simply because we published a news story about jailbreaking https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/19/app-store-review-ridiculousness-apple-rejects-appleinsiders-iphone-x-app-update-because-of-news-story-about-jailbreaking https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/19/app-store-review-...

threeseed 6y ago
Apple approves tens/hundreds of millions of changes each year. They are going to make mistakes and there are going to be inconsistencies in how they approach certain apps. Especially since the policies have evolved over the last decade or so. Also the AppleInsider one is just wrong. I remember that one and it was approved shortly after that article.
- e_y_ 6y ago
  I think part of the problem is the difficulty of challenging these inconsistent decisions -- and not just Apple; Google Play is probably just as bad at dealing with escalations. If developers and major companies have to resort to complaining publicly to get a decision revisited, there's a problem with the process that isn't simply due to getting a bad reviewer.
- msandford 6y ago
  > Apple approves tens/hundreds of millions of changes each year. > They are going to make mistakes and there are going to be inconsistencies in how they approach certain apps. Especially since the policies have evolved over the last decade or so. Apple's the one who made it a walled-garden. They're the ones that made the rules. They're the ones that made the escalation procedures. They're the ones who have managed to not be consistent. If you make literally all the rules and the rules ABOUT the rules and you still have bad outcomes there's nobody to blame but you. Which is exactly what people are complaining about. Nobody put a gun to Apple's head for any of these things. One might argue that with YouTube the whole ContentID fiasco wasn't really their idea insofar as YouTube was going to get sued into oblivion by the music/movie industry if they didn't provide some tools. This is categorically Apple's domain and they're the ones who made all the problems. People's expectations aren't unreasonable in my opinion. It's pretty common to want rules to be enforced fairly and impartially.

threeseed 6y ago

Apple approves tens/hundreds of millions of changes each year. They are going to make mistakes and there are going to be inconsistencies in how they approach certain apps. Especially since the policies have evolved over the last decade or so. Also the AppleInsider one is just wrong. I remember that one and it was approved shortly after that article.

e_y_ 6y ago
I think part of the problem is the difficulty of challenging these inconsistent decisions -- and not just Apple; Google Play is probably just as bad at dealing with escalations. If developers and major companies have to resort to complaining publicly to get a decision revisited, there's a problem with the process that isn't simply due to getting a bad reviewer.
msandford 6y ago
> Apple approves tens/hundreds of millions of changes each year. > They are going to make mistakes and there are going to be inconsistencies in how they approach certain apps. Especially since the policies have evolved over the last decade or so. Apple's the one who made it a walled-garden. They're the ones that made the rules. They're the ones that made the escalation procedures. They're the ones who have managed to not be consistent. If you make literally all the rules and the rules ABOUT the rules and you still have bad outcomes there's nobody to blame but you. Which is exactly what people are complaining about. Nobody put a gun to Apple's head for any of these things. One might argue that with YouTube the whole ContentID fiasco wasn't really their idea insofar as YouTube was going to get sued into oblivion by the music/movie industry if they didn't provide some tools. This is categorically Apple's domain and they're the ones who made all the problems. People's expectations aren't unreasonable in my opinion. It's pretty common to want rules to be enforced fairly and impartially.