13 ms·

Apple 'Surprised' by Developer Frustration with Its App Review Process

307 points by gabea 5y ago

PedroBatista 5y ago
Either "Apple" is lying or "Apple" should be fired for incompetence. Since they control ALL the process and have ALL the logs and data points, so there's absolute no reason to be "surprised". Also there are plenty of internal emails talking about many reasons for these "frustrations". Maybe our guy Tim Cook is really a Michael Spindler type of guy.
appleflaxen 5y ago
This is 7 months old; why post now?
reiichiroh 5y ago
Maybe they meant “delighted” and autocorrect mistyped
ravedave5 5y ago
These last few weeks was the first time I dealt with this process. App was rejected for reason 1, resubmitted, now there's a reason 2, which is they clearly didn't read the instructions how to continue, ok, resubmit with more instructions, and now rejected for reason 3. Resubmitted And finally passed. The reviewers were definitely not all applying the same rules/info. Released to prod and it had a major defect for 2/10 people. Dropped a minor update and it took ~48 hours for a review. REALLY frustrating.
- pier25 5y ago
  The first time I submitted an app it was rejected because something like "the screenshots must be taken from the app". The screenshots were taken from the simulator... It took a couple more days until the app was finally published while we had thousands of users waiting for it. The company I worked for provided services to schools and its students. Our call center was on fire for a couple of days with calls from annoyed teachers and parents and there was nothing we could do about it.
  - hobofan 5y ago
    It's an unwritten rule (actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a written rule for their internal review process) that your app will be rejected on the first review. One of the most valueable insights a mobile freelancer working on our app gave us was to submit the app for first review at least two weeks before planned launch. Just as they anticipated, the first review came back negative because "hey, could you please also make the app work on the iPad?", even though we explicitly marked it as not available for iPad (and didn't include it in the app bundle) to cut down the scope for initial launch.
    - Aulig 5y ago
      I've managed to publish apps on the first try, but it's really rare. Most of the time I get 2 or 3 rejections and then an approval - just by continuously telling the app reviewers that the app does in fact comply with the guidelines, citing Apple's definitions of certain terms (which the app reviewers in many cases don't seem to know).
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  Fixing the major defect involved a minor update? You resubmitted it to Apple twice without noticing, and you're mad at Apple for all the "delays". Really? Other developers were waiting their turn in the review line while you were going back and forth with the reviewers on an update that was defective from the start. Take some responsibility!
  - Volundr 5y ago
    You've never written a bug that wasn't discovered until production? I certainly have, and given that I still haven't found the secret to never doing so again, I also build systems that are updatable with as little friction as possible. I don't see how the parent failed to take responsibility. They were responsible for the bug. Apple was responsible for the delay in the fix.
    - tinus_hn 5y ago
      Were they? Apple does have a process for expedited review of critical bug fixes. But that’s not for ‘minor updates’. It’s not at all clear they attempted to get expedited review.
- cwp 5y ago
  I sympathize; this sort of thing is very frustrating. However, it's better than it was. I was working on iOS apps 7-8 years ago and it was just like the story above, but each review took 2-3 weeks.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
This article is from March - maybe that should be in the title?
- andybak 5y ago
  I don't think it especially makes a difference. Apple being surprised by something that has been a widespread complaint for as long as I can remember is either duplicitous or a worrying indictment of their lack of contact with the developer community. We're talking over a decade so it makes little odds whether this piece of written in March or 5 years ago - it's fairly awful in either case.
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    Five years ago (IIRC) their reviews took 3-7 days. Someone made a really useful website where people would self-report the review time, and it estimated the current average. This completely pulled down Apple's pants, which silently fixed their review process so it took less than a day. It was so effective the website became irrelevant, but it seems like the wheels are turning around. Edit: this is the website https://appreviewtimes.com https://appreviewtimes.com, and it seems like the review time has been stable at 1-2 days for a while.
    - solarkraft 5y ago
      Any idea how it got them to improve themselves here? Rather highlighting the issue to turn or them fearing embarrassment from the number being clearly available?
      - ASalazarMX 5y ago
        It doesn't say because Apple being Apple, it never acknowledged it had a problem, but this is the gist: > In 2016 Phil Schiller took over the App Store group inside Apple and pretty quickly review times reduced from weeks to “about a day” across all of the stores and review times have now been consistent for about three years. In my mind this problem is totally solved. Whole story here: https://daveverwer.com/blog/saying-goodbye-to-app-review-times/ https://daveverwer.com/blog/saying-goodbye-to-app-review-tim...
zionic 5y ago
I have shipped ~100 apps on the app store, ranging in size from simple to large/complex. The app store, review process, and (especially) Apple's demands for 30% of everything make dealing with them easily the worst aspect of my work. Apple makes several million/year off their cut from me, and I would drop the App Store in a heartbeat if I could.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  You you feel like you get the level of service of a premium customer paying several million?
  - zionic 5y ago
    There has been absolutely zero change in “service” quality from when my first app made $15 a month to my developer account pulling in >$10mil annually. An email would be nice. Maybe a fruit basket.
    - amelius 5y ago
      > An email would be nice. Maybe a fruit basket. Ask not what Apple can do for you -- ask what you can do for Apple.
    - alanlammiman 5y ago
      Arguably it gets worse. At $10mil you're on their radar and get a lot more rejections.
    - shapefrog 5y ago
      > account pulling in >$10mil annually. An email would be nice. Maybe a fruit basket. They cut you a cheque for 10mil each year, maybe you are the one that should be sending them a fruit basket at christmas.
      - effingwewt 5y ago
        The hubris. This is like failing restaurants who can't hire people putting up signs saying 'giving away stimulus checks every 2 weeks apply inside'. They aren't cutting him a check, they are installing themselves as a middle man between him and his money. Apple did none of the work, but take almost half the money. Remove the app store, it's all spam and ads anyways and search is damn near impossible. I'd say they should be paying him since his apps bring in so many customers, and he has to do all the legwork. If people stop making iOS apps, thr machine stops.
hinkley 5y ago
These days when I hear people being 'surprised' by negative feedback they weren't getting but 'everyone' knew about: You should ask yourself why people stopped coming to you with information, and why someone else has it instead of you. Especially if it's your job to keep on top of that issue. You've alienated them in some way that means they're avoiding talking to you, from fear or contempt. In the cases I've been involved with, I've come to realize that people don't like to look stupid, and some people accidentally or on purpose put you into that scenario a few times, and they just start avoiding you. You no longer get all the information, and the people they feel safe giving it to will include people who you already have a strained relationship with, and they may use this information as ammunition against you. It's better that people ask you dumb questions and you teach them how to answer them or steer them toward better questions, rather than imply that's a dumb question. Most especially if any other people are going to observe the conversation. Will you get interrupted a lot? Yes. But you'll also know where all of the choke points are in the system - where everyone else is getting interrupted. If you're doing policy or architecture without knowing pain points, you're going to be the one who looks like an idiot. But nobody is gonna tell you that to your face. Or at least not until your goose is cooked.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  And that’s the charitable interpretation. The non-charitable one is that they simply lied.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    I think it's somewhere in the middle, which is somehow worse. The 'dumb' vector works on technical people. But we know, or at least can read between the lines, from big scandals that management has trained their reports to lie to them by omission. Don't bring me bad news and I can say with a straight face that we aren't aware of any problems.
  - javadocmd 5y ago
    A bit like Captain Renault proclaiming his shock at finding gambling in Rick's cafe.
tetrisgm 5y ago
I’m skeptical the surprise is genuine. The App Store review process has always been an issue. It is slower than Android’s approach, preventing effective stages rollouts. It slows down iteration speed. It forces teams to ship at Apple’s cadence. Compare the process with the sophistication of a mature devops team for a web app. The App Store is orders of magnitude less effective. It’s frankly hard to believe that Apple hasn’t had hires in the relevant teams, that came from dev teams that felt bottlenecked by this process.
- andrekandre 5y ago
  i think a big issue is that apple thinks of apps like actual "things" you can buy on a store shelf whereas just about every app is actually some kind of going concern that needs to deploy anytime and anywhere... it just doesn't scale
- tdeck 5y ago
  The app review process has been a black box for years. There have been stories of app developers writing or saying something critical of Apple, then inexplicably their next release gets stuck in a long review or gets declined for a reason that's not related to what has changed. That might be why people are reluctant to complain too loudly, to the extent that the latter is even true.
sdflhasjd 5y ago
It's not just the review process that frustrates me, it seems to be every tool and service. Even something as basic as logging in: Apple does not support proper TOTP, they only support SMS 2FA (or their trusted device second factor - I don't want to be glued to my Mac), which has been great when I'm out of signal or a few months ago when their SMS system went down. Every time I have a problem like this, I just think back to the Magic Mouse with the charging port on the bottom.
- TheJoeMan 5y ago
  You missed other bigger issues with even App Store Connect. On Safari, Apple’s own browser, Safari Password Autofill can’t work very well. Checking “remember this computer” doesn’t seem to last. I have spent 2 days trying to upload an App Preview (video) and you drag and drop the video file onto the box and absolutely nothing happens, not even an error. We’re paying $100/year for these tools!
- handrous 5y ago
  > Every time I have a problem like this, I just think back to the Magic Mouse with the charging port on the bottom. I thought this was the dumbest goddamn thing ever until I was issued one at work. It turned out to be completely fine. The (long) battery life and (fast) charge time make it a non-issue. The degree to which it'd have been better with a more-traditionally-placed port is so tiny that it's hardly worth consideration. Now, the backward-ass assumptions about how I'll prefer to charge my gen. 1 Pencil and which mode would be the better one to require a tiny, easy-to-lose adapter—that's another matter. "Surely users will want to plug it in to an iOS device lightning port to charge, such that it makes the iOS device nearly impossible to use while the Pencil's charging, and in a way that looks designed to break the charging connector on the Pencil if you look at it wrong, rather than simply charging it with their normal charger—which they couldn't use to charge the iOS device while the pencil's in its lightning port, anyway—while continuing to use their tablet or phone normally. Surely wanting to plug it in to a normal charger will be unusual, and not something that people want to do in all but the most unusual circumstances." eyeroll
nottorp 5y ago
This is a good candidate for joke of the year.
makecheck 5y ago
Many of us have certainly used a number of indirect channels like forum posts, blogs, podcasts, etc. but I for one have also used several direct channels: - I have filled out their “developer surveys” multiple times and explained in very direct, precise terms what is so very wrong with App Review and which parts I do not want. And I’m not talking 2021, lots of this was an issue (and flagged as such) years earlier. - I have used the Feedback system to “suggest” changes. - I have directly communicated with App Review over my own rejections. I mean, even if you ignore the insane size and resources of Apple, they can’t say they weren’t told. I’d be very surprised if it weren’t in the top 3 gripes from all surveys.
incanus77 5y ago
I have (had) been developing for the Mac, then iOS, since 2002, coming originally from a UNIX/Linux background. I essentially got out of doing any iOS development work specifically because of the review process and its hoop-jumping and awful opaqueness. I was only able to do it as long as I did because I was making developer-facing tools for seven years at Mapbox and didn't have to submit apps.
vericiab 5y ago
After reading the actual submission by Apple that the article links to, I think the article (especially the title) somewhat misrepresents what Apple said. The overview section of Apple's submission states (numbering in original) > 1. Apple understands that the Commission has received submissions from certain app developers concerning their ability to engage with Apple in the app review process. > 2. As outlined in our meeting of 23 February 2021, Apple is surprised to hear that developers have legitimate concerns about their ability to engage with Apple in the app review process in circumstances where the purpose of app review is to ensure the quality of apps on the App Store and Apple invests significant time and resources in engaging with developers directly to work together to achieve that shared goal. > 3. Apple would therefore like to provide further information to the Commission to assist it in assessing the veracity of the concerns raised by developers in their submissions. Personally I would paraphrase that not as Apple claiming to be "surprised" by developer concerns, but rather as Apple claiming to be surprised by "legitimate" developer concerns. Or to put a finer point on it, that Apple isn't actually claiming to be surprised at all and "surprised to hear" is just a euphemistic way to say that they don't believe the complaints the commission has received are legitimate. Probably a smart choice of wording on Apple's part - I don't think it would have been a better look if the headline had instead been "Apple Suggests That Developers’ Complaints Are Just Sour Grapes".
- chris_wot 5y ago
  Then perhaps Apple should make submissions to the ACCC in a less passive-aggressive manner.
grumple 5y ago
> If an app is rejected, Apple says it provides the developer with information on the reason for the rejection, and says that the app makers have an opportunity to "correspond with the Apple team member who reviewed the app." Furthermore, developers have a chance to appeal a rejection to the App Store Review Board. Having been through this and heard stories from others, Apple will send you the very broad section of the rules they think (often incorrectly) that you've violated, but they won't tell you what part of your app is violating which part of the section of rules quoted. The correspondence with the Apple team member will just reiterate the rules, and won't tell you what you're supposedly doing wrong with any sort of specificity.
Someone 5y ago
I wouldn’t read much in that. It’s from a formal reply to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, so it’s legalese/PR/politics, probably vetted by a committee, with none of them entirely happy with the final result.
ddingus 5y ago
Seriously? People talk. They talk HERE. Frankly, I read that surprise as real surprise all the PR didn't make it go away.
inspector-g 5y ago
I'm been in the middle of dealing with app review for a client these last couple weeks. One part I find very frustrating (though there are many), but don't see discussed very frequently, is the hubris imbued by Apple in their review process. They'll flatly state "you're in violation of the guidelines in Area A". So I'll submit a detailed and well-written response explaining why there are good reasons the app does what it does in Area A. They will basically say absolutely nothing in response to my submission, but instead switch gears to saying "your app is in violation of the guidelines in Area B". I'll explain why what the app does in Area B is for good reasons, they won't verbally acknowledge it at all, but will then bring up Area C. Rinse and repeat. It's rather demeaning and demoralizing to be constantly treated like "YOU'RE WRONG", explain why you're not wrong, get no "thank you" or "we're sorry for the accusation", then have to immediately deal with another "WRONG AGAIN". Much like an emotionally abusive partner. There is a simple and far more humane alternative: they could go with something like "we have concerns about Area A and it might be in violation of the guidelines, but we'd like to hear your input first before delivering an acceptance or rejection - please respond with further details". Thanks for attending my vent session lol
LeicaLatte 5y ago
I have shipped many app updates and undergone review thousands of times. Will skip Apple's store gladly.
jacobp100 5y ago
I have an app that plays music. Sometimes I get asked to do a screen recording of the app, as the reviewer doesn’t have any music on the device. This one time I did this, but they saw me launch the app from TestFlight. They told me I had to record it on a real device and not a simulator. You can’t get TestFlight on the simulator, so they don’t even know their own tools. Would not believe me. Ended up recording my physical phone before they would believe me.

307 points by gabea 5y ago

Either "Apple" is lying or "Apple" should be fired for incompetence. Since they control ALL the process and have ALL the logs and data points, so there's absolute no reason to be "surprised". Also there are plenty of internal emails talking about many reasons for these "frustrations". Maybe our guy Tim Cook is really a Michael Spindler type of guy.

appleflaxen 5y ago

This is 7 months old; why post now?

reiichiroh 5y ago

Maybe they meant “delighted” and autocorrect mistyped

ravedave5 5y ago

These last few weeks was the first time I dealt with this process. App was rejected for reason 1, resubmitted, now there's a reason 2, which is they clearly didn't read the instructions how to continue, ok, resubmit with more instructions, and now rejected for reason 3. Resubmitted And finally passed. The reviewers were definitely not all applying the same rules/info. Released to prod and it had a major defect for 2/10 people. Dropped a minor update and it took ~48 hours for a review. REALLY frustrating.

pier25 5y ago
The first time I submitted an app it was rejected because something like "the screenshots must be taken from the app". The screenshots were taken from the simulator... It took a couple more days until the app was finally published while we had thousands of users waiting for it. The company I worked for provided services to schools and its students. Our call center was on fire for a couple of days with calls from annoyed teachers and parents and there was nothing we could do about it.
- hobofan 5y ago
  It's an unwritten rule (actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a written rule for their internal review process) that your app will be rejected on the first review. One of the most valueable insights a mobile freelancer working on our app gave us was to submit the app for first review at least two weeks before planned launch. Just as they anticipated, the first review came back negative because "hey, could you please also make the app work on the iPad?", even though we explicitly marked it as not available for iPad (and didn't include it in the app bundle) to cut down the scope for initial launch.
  - Aulig 5y ago
    I've managed to publish apps on the first try, but it's really rare. Most of the time I get 2 or 3 rejections and then an approval - just by continuously telling the app reviewers that the app does in fact comply with the guidelines, citing Apple's definitions of certain terms (which the app reviewers in many cases don't seem to know).
OldHand2018 5y ago
Fixing the major defect involved a minor update? You resubmitted it to Apple twice without noticing, and you're mad at Apple for all the "delays". Really? Other developers were waiting their turn in the review line while you were going back and forth with the reviewers on an update that was defective from the start. Take some responsibility!
- Volundr 5y ago
  You've never written a bug that wasn't discovered until production? I certainly have, and given that I still haven't found the secret to never doing so again, I also build systems that are updatable with as little friction as possible. I don't see how the parent failed to take responsibility. They were responsible for the bug. Apple was responsible for the delay in the fix.
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    Were they? Apple does have a process for expedited review of critical bug fixes. But that’s not for ‘minor updates’. It’s not at all clear they attempted to get expedited review.
cwp 5y ago
I sympathize; this sort of thing is very frustrating. However, it's better than it was. I was working on iOS apps 7-8 years ago and it was just like the story above, but each review took 2-3 weeks.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

This article is from March - maybe that should be in the title?

andybak 5y ago
I don't think it especially makes a difference. Apple being surprised by something that has been a widespread complaint for as long as I can remember is either duplicitous or a worrying indictment of their lack of contact with the developer community. We're talking over a decade so it makes little odds whether this piece of written in March or 5 years ago - it's fairly awful in either case.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  Five years ago (IIRC) their reviews took 3-7 days. Someone made a really useful website where people would self-report the review time, and it estimated the current average. This completely pulled down Apple's pants, which silently fixed their review process so it took less than a day. It was so effective the website became irrelevant, but it seems like the wheels are turning around. Edit: this is the website https://appreviewtimes.com https://appreviewtimes.com, and it seems like the review time has been stable at 1-2 days for a while.
  - solarkraft 5y ago
    Any idea how it got them to improve themselves here? Rather highlighting the issue to turn or them fearing embarrassment from the number being clearly available?
    - ASalazarMX 5y ago
      It doesn't say because Apple being Apple, it never acknowledged it had a problem, but this is the gist: > In 2016 Phil Schiller took over the App Store group inside Apple and pretty quickly review times reduced from weeks to “about a day” across all of the stores and review times have now been consistent for about three years. In my mind this problem is totally solved. Whole story here: https://daveverwer.com/blog/saying-goodbye-to-app-review-times/ https://daveverwer.com/blog/saying-goodbye-to-app-review-tim...

zionic 5y ago

I have shipped ~100 apps on the app store, ranging in size from simple to large/complex. The app store, review process, and (especially) Apple's demands for 30% of everything make dealing with them easily the worst aspect of my work. Apple makes several million/year off their cut from me, and I would drop the App Store in a heartbeat if I could.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
You you feel like you get the level of service of a premium customer paying several million?
- zionic 5y ago
  There has been absolutely zero change in “service” quality from when my first app made $15 a month to my developer account pulling in >$10mil annually. An email would be nice. Maybe a fruit basket.
  - amelius 5y ago
    > An email would be nice. Maybe a fruit basket. Ask not what Apple can do for you -- ask what you can do for Apple.
  - alanlammiman 5y ago
    Arguably it gets worse. At $10mil you're on their radar and get a lot more rejections.
  - shapefrog 5y ago
    > account pulling in >$10mil annually. An email would be nice. Maybe a fruit basket. They cut you a cheque for 10mil each year, maybe you are the one that should be sending them a fruit basket at christmas.
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      The hubris. This is like failing restaurants who can't hire people putting up signs saying 'giving away stimulus checks every 2 weeks apply inside'. They aren't cutting him a check, they are installing themselves as a middle man between him and his money. Apple did none of the work, but take almost half the money. Remove the app store, it's all spam and ads anyways and search is damn near impossible. I'd say they should be paying him since his apps bring in so many customers, and he has to do all the legwork. If people stop making iOS apps, thr machine stops.

hinkley 5y ago

These days when I hear people being 'surprised' by negative feedback they weren't getting but 'everyone' knew about: You should ask yourself why people stopped coming to you with information, and why someone else has it instead of you. Especially if it's your job to keep on top of that issue. You've alienated them in some way that means they're avoiding talking to you, from fear or contempt. In the cases I've been involved with, I've come to realize that people don't like to look stupid, and some people accidentally or on purpose put you into that scenario a few times, and they just start avoiding you. You no longer get all the information, and the people they feel safe giving it to will include people who you already have a strained relationship with, and they may use this information as ammunition against you. It's better that people ask you dumb questions and you teach them how to answer them or steer them toward better questions, rather than imply that's a dumb question. Most especially if any other people are going to observe the conversation. Will you get interrupted a lot? Yes. But you'll also know where all of the choke points are in the system - where everyone else is getting interrupted. If you're doing policy or architecture without knowing pain points, you're going to be the one who looks like an idiot. But nobody is gonna tell you that to your face. Or at least not until your goose is cooked.

solarkraft 5y ago
And that’s the charitable interpretation. The non-charitable one is that they simply lied.
- hinkley 5y ago
  I think it's somewhere in the middle, which is somehow worse. The 'dumb' vector works on technical people. But we know, or at least can read between the lines, from big scandals that management has trained their reports to lie to them by omission. Don't bring me bad news and I can say with a straight face that we aren't aware of any problems.
- javadocmd 5y ago
  A bit like Captain Renault proclaiming his shock at finding gambling in Rick's cafe.

tetrisgm 5y ago

I’m skeptical the surprise is genuine. The App Store review process has always been an issue. It is slower than Android’s approach, preventing effective stages rollouts. It slows down iteration speed. It forces teams to ship at Apple’s cadence. Compare the process with the sophistication of a mature devops team for a web app. The App Store is orders of magnitude less effective. It’s frankly hard to believe that Apple hasn’t had hires in the relevant teams, that came from dev teams that felt bottlenecked by this process.

andrekandre 5y ago
i think a big issue is that apple thinks of apps like actual "things" you can buy on a store shelf whereas just about every app is actually some kind of going concern that needs to deploy anytime and anywhere... it just doesn't scale
tdeck 5y ago
The app review process has been a black box for years. There have been stories of app developers writing or saying something critical of Apple, then inexplicably their next release gets stuck in a long review or gets declined for a reason that's not related to what has changed. That might be why people are reluctant to complain too loudly, to the extent that the latter is even true.

sdflhasjd 5y ago

It's not just the review process that frustrates me, it seems to be every tool and service. Even something as basic as logging in: Apple does not support proper TOTP, they only support SMS 2FA (or their trusted device second factor - I don't want to be glued to my Mac), which has been great when I'm out of signal or a few months ago when their SMS system went down. Every time I have a problem like this, I just think back to the Magic Mouse with the charging port on the bottom.

TheJoeMan 5y ago
You missed other bigger issues with even App Store Connect. On Safari, Apple’s own browser, Safari Password Autofill can’t work very well. Checking “remember this computer” doesn’t seem to last. I have spent 2 days trying to upload an App Preview (video) and you drag and drop the video file onto the box and absolutely nothing happens, not even an error. We’re paying $100/year for these tools!
handrous 5y ago
> Every time I have a problem like this, I just think back to the Magic Mouse with the charging port on the bottom. I thought this was the dumbest goddamn thing ever until I was issued one at work. It turned out to be completely fine. The (long) battery life and (fast) charge time make it a non-issue. The degree to which it'd have been better with a more-traditionally-placed port is so tiny that it's hardly worth consideration. Now, the backward-ass assumptions about how I'll prefer to charge my gen. 1 Pencil and which mode would be the better one to require a tiny, easy-to-lose adapter—that's another matter. "Surely users will want to plug it in to an iOS device lightning port to charge, such that it makes the iOS device nearly impossible to use while the Pencil's charging, and in a way that looks designed to break the charging connector on the Pencil if you look at it wrong, rather than simply charging it with their normal charger—which they couldn't use to charge the iOS device while the pencil's in its lightning port, anyway—while continuing to use their tablet or phone normally. Surely wanting to plug it in to a normal charger will be unusual, and not something that people want to do in all but the most unusual circumstances." eyeroll

nottorp 5y ago

This is a good candidate for joke of the year.

makecheck 5y ago

Many of us have certainly used a number of indirect channels like forum posts, blogs, podcasts, etc. but I for one have also used several direct channels: - I have filled out their “developer surveys” multiple times and explained in very direct, precise terms what is so very wrong with App Review and which parts I do not want. And I’m not talking 2021, lots of this was an issue (and flagged as such) years earlier. - I have used the Feedback system to “suggest” changes. - I have directly communicated with App Review over my own rejections. I mean, even if you ignore the insane size and resources of Apple, they can’t say they weren’t told. I’d be very surprised if it weren’t in the top 3 gripes from all surveys.

incanus77 5y ago

I have (had) been developing for the Mac, then iOS, since 2002, coming originally from a UNIX/Linux background. I essentially got out of doing any iOS development work specifically because of the review process and its hoop-jumping and awful opaqueness. I was only able to do it as long as I did because I was making developer-facing tools for seven years at Mapbox and didn't have to submit apps.

vericiab 5y ago

After reading the actual submission by Apple that the article links to, I think the article (especially the title) somewhat misrepresents what Apple said. The overview section of Apple's submission states (numbering in original) > 1. Apple understands that the Commission has received submissions from certain app developers concerning their ability to engage with Apple in the app review process. > 2. As outlined in our meeting of 23 February 2021, Apple is surprised to hear that developers have legitimate concerns about their ability to engage with Apple in the app review process in circumstances where the purpose of app review is to ensure the quality of apps on the App Store and Apple invests significant time and resources in engaging with developers directly to work together to achieve that shared goal. > 3. Apple would therefore like to provide further information to the Commission to assist it in assessing the veracity of the concerns raised by developers in their submissions. Personally I would paraphrase that not as Apple claiming to be "surprised" by developer concerns, but rather as Apple claiming to be surprised by "legitimate" developer concerns. Or to put a finer point on it, that Apple isn't actually claiming to be surprised at all and "surprised to hear" is just a euphemistic way to say that they don't believe the complaints the commission has received are legitimate. Probably a smart choice of wording on Apple's part - I don't think it would have been a better look if the headline had instead been "Apple Suggests That Developers’ Complaints Are Just Sour Grapes".

chris_wot 5y ago
Then perhaps Apple should make submissions to the ACCC in a less passive-aggressive manner.

grumple 5y ago

> If an app is rejected, Apple says it provides the developer with information on the reason for the rejection, and says that the app makers have an opportunity to "correspond with the Apple team member who reviewed the app." Furthermore, developers have a chance to appeal a rejection to the App Store Review Board. Having been through this and heard stories from others, Apple will send you the very broad section of the rules they think (often incorrectly) that you've violated, but they won't tell you what part of your app is violating which part of the section of rules quoted. The correspondence with the Apple team member will just reiterate the rules, and won't tell you what you're supposedly doing wrong with any sort of specificity.

Someone 5y ago

I wouldn’t read much in that. It’s from a formal reply to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, so it’s legalese/PR/politics, probably vetted by a committee, with none of them entirely happy with the final result.

ddingus 5y ago

Seriously? People talk. They talk HERE. Frankly, I read that surprise as real surprise all the PR didn't make it go away.

inspector-g 5y ago

I'm been in the middle of dealing with app review for a client these last couple weeks. One part I find very frustrating (though there are many), but don't see discussed very frequently, is the hubris imbued by Apple in their review process. They'll flatly state "you're in violation of the guidelines in Area A". So I'll submit a detailed and well-written response explaining why there are good reasons the app does what it does in Area A. They will basically say absolutely nothing in response to my submission, but instead switch gears to saying "your app is in violation of the guidelines in Area B". I'll explain why what the app does in Area B is for good reasons, they won't verbally acknowledge it at all, but will then bring up Area C. Rinse and repeat. It's rather demeaning and demoralizing to be constantly treated like "YOU'RE WRONG", explain why you're not wrong, get no "thank you" or "we're sorry for the accusation", then have to immediately deal with another "WRONG AGAIN". Much like an emotionally abusive partner. There is a simple and far more humane alternative: they could go with something like "we have concerns about Area A and it might be in violation of the guidelines, but we'd like to hear your input first before delivering an acceptance or rejection - please respond with further details". Thanks for attending my vent session lol

LeicaLatte 5y ago

I have shipped many app updates and undergone review thousands of times. Will skip Apple's store gladly.

jacobp100 5y ago

I have an app that plays music. Sometimes I get asked to do a screen recording of the app, as the reviewer doesn’t have any music on the device. This one time I did this, but they saw me launch the app from TestFlight. They told me I had to record it on a real device and not a simulator. You can’t get TestFlight on the simulator, so they don’t even know their own tools. Would not believe me. Ended up recording my physical phone before they would believe me.