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JWZ ported XScreenSaver to iOS - keeps getting rejected by Apple
- leviathan 14y agoTheir approval process has been so random and stubborn lately. I've been struggling with a submission for 2 months now where they keep rejecting the app cause they want me to change the text on a button.
- greenranger 14y agoThat's pretty bizarre. Care to elaborate on that?
- leviathan 14y agoI've already mentioned it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4300688 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4300688
- pooriaazimi 14y ago> They rejected the app repeatedly for the following reasons: > - in-app purchase does not provide a restore button (which I've never seen in any other app btw) Really?! Every app I use has a restore button. As a user, I'm happy they reject your app. Otherwise, if I buy that "thing" from you (via IAP) on my iPhone, it's not available on my iPad, iPod touch, or even iPhone if I restore it to factory settings. The point of IAP is: you purchase it once, it's available on all your personal devices. But your method is: every new device must purchase it again and again and again. I'm not saying you're scamming, but you're not playing by the rules customers have come to expect. So, I'm with Apple in this specific case. In my view, your app "deserved" to be rejected. But, a 2 week interval between review results? That really sucks. Shame on them.
- leviathan 14y agoEven if the inapp purchase is to remove ads from the free version? I couldn't find an appropriate reference for that specific case, and besides, I changed the purchase button to check for a restore first, an failing to find that, ask the user to pay. But that still didn't cut it with the reviewers, they wanted an explicit button named restore.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago> Even if the inapp purchase is to remove ads from the free version? I think even in this case, yes, it should be there. But if you've changed it (to something even more elegant) and they still rejected it, shame on them!
- franzus 14y agoHeh, I've been rejected for 2 weeks because their caching server fucked up and though I uploaded a fixed version of the binary they kept getting the old faulty one. The reviewer wasn't even capable of telling me the build number of the binary they were reviewing and kept redirecting me to Apple's DTS. So after using one of my paid DTS inquires for this nonsense the problem got fixed and I had to wait only 2 more weeks for the next review date. The Apple engineer was very capable and friendly though - so no criticism there. The problem is that the reviewers have no idea of development. They are clueless and I guess Apple hires some low paid college students for these positions. It's like talking to some immature AI or a 5 year old kid. They have their guidelines and rules and aren't capably of any interaction outside of this framework. Wasting our time and money.
- neya 14y agoI love the URL slug =)
- zapu 14y agoIt is named ScreenSaver, when it clearly does not function as "screen saver" on iOS device. Apple is right.
- sanxiyn 14y agoNo, Apple is definitely wrong.
- zapu 14y ago"Wrong" how? Morally wrong? Against their rules? They have clause about not misleading users and they are enforcing it.
- sanxiyn 14y agoWrong, as in unreasonable and irrational.
- glhaynes 14y agoI'm glad that my very non-techie friends won't come across this app in the App Store and start having anxiety over whether they need a screen saver for their iPhone. Or, worse yet, start opening it up every time they're not going to be using their phones for a while.
- LinaLauneBaer 14y agoHow are they right? I really want to understand your point of view. Do you mean they are not right because the app does not save a screen from anything? What if you are using your iPhone to project something on an plasma screen where a screen saver can save a screen from "burn ins". I am really interested in your thoughts.
- spoonmonkeyuk 14y agoThe app cannot function as you'd expect a screen saver to do: it won't start running after a period of inactivity. That is outside the scope of functionality available to apps. As such, yeah the name is a little misleading.
- sanxiyn 14y agoThis sounds like an argument that using the name Apple will confuse people because it is a famous fruit. What a stupid reason.
- dude_anon123 14y agoApple might be wrong, but jwz is a dick. Just read the comments on that link and see how abusive he is to the other commenters.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- pmarca 14y agoJamie lives a hard life.
- undantag 14y agoI tend to think of him as Zed Shaw's grandfather.
- smackfu 14y agoWell, they are pretty terrible responses. And people expect brusqueness from jwz at this point.
- city41 14y agoDoesn't mean the brusqueness is appropriate or called for. I don't care what jwz has accomplished, basic human decency is something we should all strive for.
- prodigal_erik 14y agoThese people are attacking not only the independence of our profession but their consumers' human faculty for tinkering. IMHO the gloves should come farther off than they have.
- prodigal_erik 14y agoOh, you meant the peanut gallery on jwz's blog, not the app store asshats. Yeah, I wouldn't act like that, OTOH I don't have what it takes to write enough insightful and entertaining rants to become net.famous.
- retrogradeorbit 14y ago"I don't own and don't plan to own any Android devices, because frankly I think it sucks." --jwz Oh, the deep irony.
- statictype 14y agoWhere's the irony?
- gcp 14y agoWhen he said Android sucks he presumably evaluated a number of attributes of both iOS and Android and concluded that iOS outperforms Android in those he cares about. He's now finding out the hard way that "openness" may have been an attribute the importance of which he underestimated. And just like the tens of other iOS developers that came to whine here when the same happened to them: you knew what you were getting into and chose to ignore it at your own peril.
- sturadnidge 14y agoThat's all well and good, but there's no irony there. As statictype I believe was suggesting. It only would have been ironic had jwz elected to develop for iOS because he thought the Android app store policy sucked, to find that the Apple app store policy sucked more. Which is not the case here. [Edited to include clarification]
- gcp 14y agoThere's some level of irony in 2 areas: 1) He disses Android harshly, yet ends up complaining about Apple not that much later. 2) He disses Android for "sucking", yet the area he complains about is one where iOS sucks compared to Android. I think this qualifies as irony: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.
- sturadnidge 14y ago
- cmadan 14y agoDoes it even matter whether Apple is wrong, unreasonable or irrational? Just like I reserve the rights of admission to my house, Apple reserves the right to accept or reject applications from the app store. If you really want Apple to change, how about NOT developing for iOS? Articles like this aren't really going to make them change their policies.
- repsilat 14y agoIf you really want Apple to change, how about NOT developing for iOS? Articles like this aren't really going to make them change their policies. Certainly convincing other people not to develop for iOS would have more of an impact than just swearing off it personally. More generally, I dislike the idea that we shouldn't write this sort of thing because "the market will sort it out anyway". This sort of post is the market sorting it out. Apple reserves the right to accept or reject applications from the app store. Sure, they're probably legally entitled to do almost anything. That doesn't mean they can't (or shouldn't) be criticised for it, though, and it doesn't mean that criticism of them can't have any impact on anyone's behaviour.
- cmadan 14y agoI agree wholeheartedly with you. However, there is no shortage of articles detailing Apple's arbitrary App store approval process. Yet, the number of applications on the App store keeps on increasing and increasing. What is striking is none (or I haven't come across one) of these articles end with the developer washing their hands off the App store and vowing never to develop another iOS app. Instead, most of them seem to be aiming to generate publicity so that Apple takes notice and hopefully approves the app.
- jasonlotito 14y ago> What is striking is none (or I haven't come across one) of these articles end with the developer washing their hands off the App store and vowing never to develop another iOS app. Probably because that's a foolish approach as a developer. If your app is worth a damn, then preventing it's use by potential customers simply because of your personal opinion is fairly inconsiderate. Should someone be deprived the use of an app simply because they bought a different phone then the one I approve of? That's a hard line to take, I understand, and realize not everyone will agree with that. =) I just feel that from the customer perspective, the only thing that matters is the developer. And if the developer choose not to release on the platform I am using, then the developer is essentially telling me I do not matter.
- davidcollantes 14y agoThe way I see it: one less junk app off the App Store. Thumbs up, Apple!
- randomdata 14y ago> changing the name does not solve the problem that people searching for "xscreensaver" in the app store will not find it if it is released under something-that-is-not-its-name. With the recent App Store search result changes, this may be of little help anyway. If you search for the name of my app, for instance, it comes up near the bottom of the results where nobody looks. I went from averaging multiple downloads per day to just two sales since the changes were put into effect.
- xutopia 14y agoWhy would I need a screensaver for an iOS device?
- larsberg 14y agoSpeaking from personal experience, once it becomes clear you and the reviewers are at an impasse but you are still submitting, somebody higher up the app store review chain will give a call to the phone number listed on your developer account and you can have a more reasonable, human conversation. Otherwise, he should just put up a sign in his club about no cover / free pizza for a member of the iOS team who's willing to put in a good word for xscreensaver. I mean, he _is_ in SF. Even I know several people on the iOS team, at least one of whom has gone there, and I don't even live/work in that area.
- acqq 14y ago"The application which just shows pretty pictures, formerly known as XScreenSaver" The goal to avoid user confusion and scams is a good goal. Even if there are a few millions XScreenSaver users (wow) on another platforms, there are orders of magnitude more potential new users who should not be mislead. How to avoid confusion is a good question, but accepting the old name doesn't appear to be a provably best solution. Can't the name be different but the application appear in searches based on the reference to the name of XScreenSaver somewhere in the description?
- peterwwillis 14y agoIs it possible for jwz to be a bigger asshole? We should have a poll. Who's a bigger asshole? * Linus Torvalds * Daniel J. Bernstein * Theo de Raadt * Jamie Zawinski