6 ms·

Thank you Apple for rejecting my app

62 points by musgravepeter 12y ago

nirajd 12y ago
I think developers should consider spending $1-$10 on graphics from sites such as graphicriver to spruce up the design of their apps. I for one am happy Apple rejects ugly applications. There is no place for them on my phone
- CaveTech 12y ago
  Because if Apple didn't reject them you'd wake up one day and find 50 of them pre-installed for you?
  - jschwartzi 12y ago
    No, because if Apple didn't reject them you'd download 50 of them in the process of finding one good one.
    - oliwarner 12y ago
      Doesn't Apple show you screenshots and reviews?
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        MCRed 12y ago
        I think Apple, and it's users, are unashamed in their belief that Apple providing users a good experience is a good thing.
  - interpol_p 12y ago
    That's not really the point. If there are 50 bad apps for every good one the store would be a horrible place to browse. If Apple enforces some level of quality then it becomes a better place for developers to sell their apps. I have the unpopular opinion that apple is already too lenient on app quality. I've been rejected quite a few times. In almost all cases the customer was better off for it.
- craigching 12y ago
  You're getting down voted so I'm going to post that I agree with you, but maybe add some perspective that you might have missed. I agree that the Apple app store is better without the ugly apps because there already are so many apps out there. Another poster made a comment about "reviews" and "screenshots." Yes, there are reviews and screenshots, but for some app types having to weed through even what does make it through is very time consuming. So this saves me time from having to look myself. I'm not sure what could allow a more lenient acceptance strategy and help me weed through apps I'm not interested in, but I'd certainly appreciate it! There are some app types/categories where it would be too bad if an ugly app didn't make it through, but I think in the grand scheme of the Apple app store these sorts of rejections are a positive.
- _random_ 12y ago
  I really wish they submitted their iOS 7-8 icons to themselves to get a rejection and maybe improve them.
ryandvm 12y ago
What's funny is that ugly apps actually do alright on Android. I don't know how many times I've seen an app have 5 stars and hundreds of thousands of downloads, only to install it and find out the UI is horrendous. This seems to reinforce a pervasive stereotype that Android users are utilitarian while iOS users are much more concerned with aesthetics and form.
- _random_ 12y ago
  > This seems to reinforce a pervasive stereotype that Android users are utilitarian while iOS users are much more concerned with aesthetics and form The root is probably in iOS users being richer and coming from a richer countries. It's like the interior design of cheap kebab shops and hairdressers vs hipster artisan shops.
- alexvr 12y ago
  I think you would find that most iOS users are just as utilitarian. The vast majority of complaints you see on iOS app reviews concern functionality. If anyone, you should accuse Apple of being (overly?) concerned with aesthetics.
  - w1ntermute 12y ago
    I would guess that the majority of users on both platforms don't really care, or don't understand the subject clearly enough to verbalize it. But among the most vocal and informed users of each platform, the difference suggested by the GP is quite clear.
- analog31 12y ago
  The same stereotypes were applied to Mac and PC users. And it correlated (not claiming causality) to the respective marketing messages: You are an Apple user, you are young and creative and beautiful. You are a PC user, you are mature, businesslike, and successful.
- sgdesign 12y ago
  This could be a self-reinforcing problem, too. Apps with ugly UIs do well, so developers don't see the need to invest resources in better UIs, which means users don't have better alternatives and end up buying apps with ugly UIs, and so on…
spir 12y ago
Since Apple has the dominant appstore, they can afford to be choosier, which, at least in this instance, helped a developer improve his app. Over at BlackBerry, "OMG somebody wants to publish an App!!"
- _random_ 12y ago
  > Since Apple has the dominant appstore, they can afford to be choosier Which creates a feedback loop in which the store improves in both quality and quantity - unlike WP and Android - sadly.
- aaronbrethorst 12y ago
  Apple would be choosier even if they had Microsoft's market share in the mobile space. It's just how they are. As it works out, the strategy seems to have paid off for them.
raptormissle 12y ago
Was this supposed to be sarcastic? Because the app is still ugly.
k2xl 12y ago
So the problem with the Apple Review process is that Apple is making the decisions on what constitutes good or bad UI. The Google Play store (and others) already give you feedback - customers give ratings and can provide a comment. This is much better than a central authority dictating what is good and what is bad. There are many apls that have no need for a great UI - that a perhaps more functional in nature than aesthetic. The beautiful thing about an open policy like the Google Play store is that you can not just get actual customer (Apple reviewers are probably not your customers) feedback and actually REACT to the feedback by uploading a new version right away... While on Apple Store users have to wait 7-10 days for the App to be "approved" - and if it gets rejected you have to wait another 7-10 days.
- pavlov 12y ago
  This is much better than a central authority dictating what is good and what is bad. It's ironic that the company that commissioned the 1984 ad ended up seemingly irrevocably drawn towards centralized authority and secretive hierarchical decision-making. (They were always at war with Google. Always.)
  - MCRed 12y ago
    What's ironic is that people think nothing of google keeping spam out of its index, but have a problem with Apple keeping spam out of the AppStore. Apple's beef with Google started when they counterfeited iOS, which occurred while the Google chairman was on the Apple board of directors. (Something I would think would be pretty actionable.) Apple is not a centralized authority because Apple doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones. The decision making is neither hierarchical or secretive, as they have published the rules, and will cite chapter and verse when they reject you. I got rejected. I didn't cry, but I was pretty pissed for about 4 hours. It sucks and it's hard not to take it personally. But once I was objective, I realized they were right, I fixed the problem, and got published. Like OP, I realize they were right. Given the number of apps I've submitted to the Appstore and the few rejections I've gotten, it's clear Apple is playing fair. But it is ironic that google fans who never submit apps to the store generate so much grief and noise over Apple's rejections while being mum about googles actively shaping the the entire web to be lower quality. And unlike Apple, google does have an effective monopoly.
pavlov 12y ago
Of course there's no consistent standard here, so it's a completely arbitrary decision by the reviewer. On another day, the first version could have passed. (The iOS HIG is supposed to be the standard, but strict adherence requirements would remove 98% of the apps on Apple's store.)
- MCRed 12y ago
  You've constructed a false dichotomy. There is a spectrum from 0-%100 adherence with the HIG and all the other rules. While the reviewers do not require %100 conformity, that does not mean there is "no consistent standard" or that its "completely arbitrary". In my experience reviewers are very careful to be precise and document, including screenshots, the specifics that cause a rejection. Having been rejected, none of them were arbitrary. Were you ever rejected?
visualR 12y ago
Relying on App Store reviewers for feedback is a bad idea. The whole process is capricious. It's likely had he submitted at a different time and gotten a different reviewer, the app would have been approved.
robbrown451 12y ago
I appreciate what Apple is doing, and holy crap it was indeed ugly. Still I'd rather let the market decide. A better approach would be for Apple to tell you that your app was approved but it would be harder to find (like you'd have to scroll/click/etc a bit deeper) until you prettied it up (or until it got a bunch of good ratings despite its appearance).
- mariodiana 12y ago
  Apple is a part of the market.
  - barrkel 12y ago
    Apple controls access to a market. Markets work because lots of different people get to make purchase choices. Their choices become information that feeds into the competitive process. If there's demand for a product, the price offered for it should increase (the manufacturer should be able to carve out larger profits). That should attract competitors, and increase supply, and the competition should help create products that are both better designed and lower priced. When Apple prevents access to the market, it stops this process taking place. If there's no price signal, there's less incentive for people to compete; the product's niche hasn't been validated. But you're right, this market is hierarchical, and at a higher level, Apple is just a part of the bigger market. In that market, I choose Android in large part because of how Apple controls their sub-market.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
emehrkay 12y ago
As someone who is more engineer than designer and can recognize good/great design, but cannot necessarily produce one myself, I feel that this type of feedback is great. If I look at a design or user interface interaction and say "I could had done that," I feel that it isn't that good. Higher standards will push you to better results
hardwaresofton 12y ago
Don't know if the author is on here, but please use a modified framework (or the default UI elements) when you develop your app. Also, you can throw in some pre-baked icons (I dunno if font-awesome is usable on iphone, there's gotta be something similar out there) You can create a pretty good (albeit default) looking app by just using the default elements, outside of the actual view that handles the game. You shouldn't have needed Apple to tell you that looked bad. Games don't have to have fancy UX, it's all about what the game is going to do, look at some other games and see how they do it
- rsynnott 12y ago
  It looks like this was a unity game, so no access to the default UI stuff.
  - musgravepeter 12y ago
    Yep. Unity. (author here) However, in effect I did the same as using default assets by buying assets that were ok across platforms.
    - hardwaresofton 12y ago
      Ah awesome -- was really hoping I didn't come off as judgemental in the comment. Mind sharing what you ended up using? I didn't see it on the post (maybe I didn't look hard enough?). [EDIT] I just realized the second screen shot is the changed app... After a quick google search I found stuff like this (the first one doesn't look bad at all): http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/gui-ngui-skins-and-widgets-collections.159697/ http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/gui-ngui-skins-and-widgets-... Is that usable?
      - musgravepeter 12y ago
        I chose Mad Level Manager (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10070 https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10070) It's capable of a lot more than I used but I wanted to get this done and go on to the next set of physics ideas. I am also playing with the Beta of Unity 4.6 which has a lot of the same ideas as NGUI built in. These will make it much easier to make "non-ugly" UIs with very modest effort.
CoolGuySteve 12y ago
One of the things that always bugged me about programmer interfaces is the poor choices made. For example in the interface from this article; Why did he pick a marble background for the buttons? Why that weird font? Why those bezels? He could just as easily have picked Helvetica (or any other sans serif font really), and some flat colour and gotten a distant but not obnoxious facsimile to the iOS/android designs. This is really a pet peeve of mine when I see this stuff from my colleagues. It doesn't even have to look great, but your stylistic choices shouldn't be worse than of you had made no choice at all. The other thing (although not present here) is when programmers pick eye blasting 0xff red and 0xff green for text on a white bg. Just type 0x7f instead and it reads so much better!
jimmaswell 12y ago
Does it matter at all? It has nothing to do with the experience of the actual game. Apple wasted your time on a pointless detail and you thanked them for it.
korzun 12y ago
He could have asked for a second opinion elsewhere. The feedback would have been the same as Apples. Going through 15-60 day review process for that is ridiculous, just like the post in question.
- rsynnott 12y ago
  Where are you getting 15 to 60 day review process from?! Numerous sources report an average of 5 to 10 days. The only one I've ever heard of going anywhere like 60 days was the Gmail app, and that was almost certainly a cycle of rejections; when it finally shipped, it barely worked at all, and tended to crash.
  - korzun 12y ago
    A bit of exaggeration on my part. But one of my applications was in a review stage for 20 ish days due to delays within their review process a while back.
    - madaxe_again 12y ago
      How dare you exaggerate? Give us cold hard facts, now. Show me paperwork to prove your app was in this stage for so long, or you're clearly lying.
exo_duz 12y ago
It's always good before starting do design for any Apple product to have a quick look at their Human Interface Guideline (HIG) https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/MobileHIG/index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userex.... They have HIG for almost everything. I also read that a lot of apps are developed on iOS first http://www.businessinsider.com.au/app-design-company-director-all-of-our-clients-choose-ios-over-android-2012-7 http://www.businessinsider.com.au/app-design-company-directo.... I wonder if there's any truth to that. But saying that I know that Google is pressing their Material Design http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti... quite hard lately. Would really love to hear what Android devs think of the Material Design. Are they going to port their current app design to it?
imron 12y ago
To those suggesting it's better to rely on customer feedback and reviews to know how to improve the design/UI of your app, what would you find more useful: 1) A 1-star review from a random user, with a comment saying the app looks ugly. 2) A detailed report with screenshots and a list of places where your app fails to meet basic UI/design principles, made by someone whose job it is to give you feedback so that you can improve your app. I'll take option 2 every time, and most users from option 1 aren't going to even bother to complain - they'll just not use your app.

62 points by musgravepeter 12y ago

I think developers should consider spending $1-$10 on graphics from sites such as graphicriver to spruce up the design of their apps. I for one am happy Apple rejects ugly applications. There is no place for them on my phone

CaveTech 12y ago
Because if Apple didn't reject them you'd wake up one day and find 50 of them pre-installed for you?
- jschwartzi 12y ago
  No, because if Apple didn't reject them you'd download 50 of them in the process of finding one good one.
  - oliwarner 12y ago
    Doesn't Apple show you screenshots and reviews?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - MCRed 12y ago
        I think Apple, and it's users, are unashamed in their belief that Apple providing users a good experience is a good thing.
- interpol_p 12y ago
  That's not really the point. If there are 50 bad apps for every good one the store would be a horrible place to browse. If Apple enforces some level of quality then it becomes a better place for developers to sell their apps. I have the unpopular opinion that apple is already too lenient on app quality. I've been rejected quite a few times. In almost all cases the customer was better off for it.
craigching 12y ago
You're getting down voted so I'm going to post that I agree with you, but maybe add some perspective that you might have missed. I agree that the Apple app store is better without the ugly apps because there already are so many apps out there. Another poster made a comment about "reviews" and "screenshots." Yes, there are reviews and screenshots, but for some app types having to weed through even what does make it through is very time consuming. So this saves me time from having to look myself. I'm not sure what could allow a more lenient acceptance strategy and help me weed through apps I'm not interested in, but I'd certainly appreciate it! There are some app types/categories where it would be too bad if an ugly app didn't make it through, but I think in the grand scheme of the Apple app store these sorts of rejections are a positive.
_random_ 12y ago
I really wish they submitted their iOS 7-8 icons to themselves to get a rejection and maybe improve them.

ryandvm 12y ago

What's funny is that ugly apps actually do alright on Android. I don't know how many times I've seen an app have 5 stars and hundreds of thousands of downloads, only to install it and find out the UI is horrendous. This seems to reinforce a pervasive stereotype that Android users are utilitarian while iOS users are much more concerned with aesthetics and form.

_random_ 12y ago
> This seems to reinforce a pervasive stereotype that Android users are utilitarian while iOS users are much more concerned with aesthetics and form The root is probably in iOS users being richer and coming from a richer countries. It's like the interior design of cheap kebab shops and hairdressers vs hipster artisan shops.
alexvr 12y ago
I think you would find that most iOS users are just as utilitarian. The vast majority of complaints you see on iOS app reviews concern functionality. If anyone, you should accuse Apple of being (overly?) concerned with aesthetics.
- w1ntermute 12y ago
  I would guess that the majority of users on both platforms don't really care, or don't understand the subject clearly enough to verbalize it. But among the most vocal and informed users of each platform, the difference suggested by the GP is quite clear.
analog31 12y ago
The same stereotypes were applied to Mac and PC users. And it correlated (not claiming causality) to the respective marketing messages: You are an Apple user, you are young and creative and beautiful. You are a PC user, you are mature, businesslike, and successful.
sgdesign 12y ago
This could be a self-reinforcing problem, too. Apps with ugly UIs do well, so developers don't see the need to invest resources in better UIs, which means users don't have better alternatives and end up buying apps with ugly UIs, and so on…

spir 12y ago

Since Apple has the dominant appstore, they can afford to be choosier, which, at least in this instance, helped a developer improve his app. Over at BlackBerry, "OMG somebody wants to publish an App!!"

_random_ 12y ago
> Since Apple has the dominant appstore, they can afford to be choosier Which creates a feedback loop in which the store improves in both quality and quantity - unlike WP and Android - sadly.
aaronbrethorst 12y ago
Apple would be choosier even if they had Microsoft's market share in the mobile space. It's just how they are. As it works out, the strategy seems to have paid off for them.

raptormissle 12y ago

Was this supposed to be sarcastic? Because the app is still ugly.

k2xl 12y ago

So the problem with the Apple Review process is that Apple is making the decisions on what constitutes good or bad UI. The Google Play store (and others) already give you feedback - customers give ratings and can provide a comment. This is much better than a central authority dictating what is good and what is bad. There are many apls that have no need for a great UI - that a perhaps more functional in nature than aesthetic. The beautiful thing about an open policy like the Google Play store is that you can not just get actual customer (Apple reviewers are probably not your customers) feedback and actually REACT to the feedback by uploading a new version right away... While on Apple Store users have to wait 7-10 days for the App to be "approved" - and if it gets rejected you have to wait another 7-10 days.

pavlov 12y ago
This is much better than a central authority dictating what is good and what is bad. It's ironic that the company that commissioned the 1984 ad ended up seemingly irrevocably drawn towards centralized authority and secretive hierarchical decision-making. (They were always at war with Google. Always.)
- MCRed 12y ago
  What's ironic is that people think nothing of google keeping spam out of its index, but have a problem with Apple keeping spam out of the AppStore. Apple's beef with Google started when they counterfeited iOS, which occurred while the Google chairman was on the Apple board of directors. (Something I would think would be pretty actionable.) Apple is not a centralized authority because Apple doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones. The decision making is neither hierarchical or secretive, as they have published the rules, and will cite chapter and verse when they reject you. I got rejected. I didn't cry, but I was pretty pissed for about 4 hours. It sucks and it's hard not to take it personally. But once I was objective, I realized they were right, I fixed the problem, and got published. Like OP, I realize they were right. Given the number of apps I've submitted to the Appstore and the few rejections I've gotten, it's clear Apple is playing fair. But it is ironic that google fans who never submit apps to the store generate so much grief and noise over Apple's rejections while being mum about googles actively shaping the the entire web to be lower quality. And unlike Apple, google does have an effective monopoly.

pavlov 12y ago

Of course there's no consistent standard here, so it's a completely arbitrary decision by the reviewer. On another day, the first version could have passed. (The iOS HIG is supposed to be the standard, but strict adherence requirements would remove 98% of the apps on Apple's store.)

MCRed 12y ago
You've constructed a false dichotomy. There is a spectrum from 0-%100 adherence with the HIG and all the other rules. While the reviewers do not require %100 conformity, that does not mean there is "no consistent standard" or that its "completely arbitrary". In my experience reviewers are very careful to be precise and document, including screenshots, the specifics that cause a rejection. Having been rejected, none of them were arbitrary. Were you ever rejected?

visualR 12y ago

Relying on App Store reviewers for feedback is a bad idea. The whole process is capricious. It's likely had he submitted at a different time and gotten a different reviewer, the app would have been approved.

robbrown451 12y ago

I appreciate what Apple is doing, and holy crap it was indeed ugly. Still I'd rather let the market decide. A better approach would be for Apple to tell you that your app was approved but it would be harder to find (like you'd have to scroll/click/etc a bit deeper) until you prettied it up (or until it got a bunch of good ratings despite its appearance).

mariodiana 12y ago
Apple is a part of the market.
- barrkel 12y ago
  Apple controls access to a market. Markets work because lots of different people get to make purchase choices. Their choices become information that feeds into the competitive process. If there's demand for a product, the price offered for it should increase (the manufacturer should be able to carve out larger profits). That should attract competitors, and increase supply, and the competition should help create products that are both better designed and lower priced. When Apple prevents access to the market, it stops this process taking place. If there's no price signal, there's less incentive for people to compete; the product's niche hasn't been validated. But you're right, this market is hierarchical, and at a higher level, Apple is just a part of the bigger market. In that market, I choose Android in large part because of how Apple controls their sub-market.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

emehrkay 12y ago

As someone who is more engineer than designer and can recognize good/great design, but cannot necessarily produce one myself, I feel that this type of feedback is great. If I look at a design or user interface interaction and say "I could had done that," I feel that it isn't that good. Higher standards will push you to better results

hardwaresofton 12y ago

Don't know if the author is on here, but please use a modified framework (or the default UI elements) when you develop your app. Also, you can throw in some pre-baked icons (I dunno if font-awesome is usable on iphone, there's gotta be something similar out there) You can create a pretty good (albeit default) looking app by just using the default elements, outside of the actual view that handles the game. You shouldn't have needed Apple to tell you that looked bad. Games don't have to have fancy UX, it's all about what the game is going to do, look at some other games and see how they do it

rsynnott 12y ago
It looks like this was a unity game, so no access to the default UI stuff.
- musgravepeter 12y ago
  Yep. Unity. (author here) However, in effect I did the same as using default assets by buying assets that were ok across platforms.
  - hardwaresofton 12y ago
    Ah awesome -- was really hoping I didn't come off as judgemental in the comment. Mind sharing what you ended up using? I didn't see it on the post (maybe I didn't look hard enough?). [EDIT] I just realized the second screen shot is the changed app... After a quick google search I found stuff like this (the first one doesn't look bad at all): http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/gui-ngui-skins-and-widgets-collections.159697/ http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/gui-ngui-skins-and-widgets-... Is that usable?
    - musgravepeter 12y ago
      I chose Mad Level Manager (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10070 https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10070) It's capable of a lot more than I used but I wanted to get this done and go on to the next set of physics ideas. I am also playing with the Beta of Unity 4.6 which has a lot of the same ideas as NGUI built in. These will make it much easier to make "non-ugly" UIs with very modest effort.

CoolGuySteve 12y ago

One of the things that always bugged me about programmer interfaces is the poor choices made. For example in the interface from this article; Why did he pick a marble background for the buttons? Why that weird font? Why those bezels? He could just as easily have picked Helvetica (or any other sans serif font really), and some flat colour and gotten a distant but not obnoxious facsimile to the iOS/android designs. This is really a pet peeve of mine when I see this stuff from my colleagues. It doesn't even have to look great, but your stylistic choices shouldn't be worse than of you had made no choice at all. The other thing (although not present here) is when programmers pick eye blasting 0xff red and 0xff green for text on a white bg. Just type 0x7f instead and it reads so much better!

jimmaswell 12y ago

Does it matter at all? It has nothing to do with the experience of the actual game. Apple wasted your time on a pointless detail and you thanked them for it.

korzun 12y ago

He could have asked for a second opinion elsewhere. The feedback would have been the same as Apples. Going through 15-60 day review process for that is ridiculous, just like the post in question.

rsynnott 12y ago
Where are you getting 15 to 60 day review process from?! Numerous sources report an average of 5 to 10 days. The only one I've ever heard of going anywhere like 60 days was the Gmail app, and that was almost certainly a cycle of rejections; when it finally shipped, it barely worked at all, and tended to crash.
- korzun 12y ago
  A bit of exaggeration on my part. But one of my applications was in a review stage for 20 ish days due to delays within their review process a while back.
  - madaxe_again 12y ago
    How dare you exaggerate? Give us cold hard facts, now. Show me paperwork to prove your app was in this stage for so long, or you're clearly lying.

exo_duz 12y ago

It's always good before starting do design for any Apple product to have a quick look at their Human Interface Guideline (HIG) https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/MobileHIG/index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userex.... They have HIG for almost everything. I also read that a lot of apps are developed on iOS first http://www.businessinsider.com.au/app-design-company-director-all-of-our-clients-choose-ios-over-android-2012-7 http://www.businessinsider.com.au/app-design-company-directo.... I wonder if there's any truth to that. But saying that I know that Google is pressing their Material Design http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti... quite hard lately. Would really love to hear what Android devs think of the Material Design. Are they going to port their current app design to it?

imron 12y ago

To those suggesting it's better to rely on customer feedback and reviews to know how to improve the design/UI of your app, what would you find more useful: 1) A 1-star review from a random user, with a comment saying the app looks ugly. 2) A detailed report with screenshots and a list of places where your app fails to meet basic UI/design principles, made by someone whose job it is to give you feedback so that you can improve your app. I'll take option 2 every time, and most users from option 1 aren't going to even bother to complain - they'll just not use your app.