The most evil (yes) thing about the rejection is that the same stupid wrong misinformation about the app continued to be rubber-stamped as it propagated forward in what should be increasing levels of actual scrutiny and attention. They are lying to call it a review - it's mindless rubber-stamping either by design or because Apple employs people who just can't be bothered to do their jobs.
App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
51–60 of 235 posts
Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#52> But that’s not what happened at all. Godier proceeded through a series of escalations up to the App Review Board and the Review Board responded that they determined the original rejection was valid because, I shit you not, “We understand that the app includes a live tarot reading feature.” > It has no tarot function, no horoscopes, and nothing that I, or anyone else I’ve asked, would associate with astrology. I hav…
Is Gruber starting to realize Apple's monopoly is bad? App stores should not exist in a world where only two phone operating systems exist. All apps MUST be installable via web. Come on, EU. Help us out here. Free us from distribution tyranny. Do it before Google morphs into the same hell beast. Soon you won't be able to read unapproved, unattested bytes. It's coming. We need as many freedoms as we can get. Apple can…
The other side of your coin is that I need to periodically visit my relatives and remove all sorts of malware and adware from their phones. Just like I've done with PCs over the past few decades.
Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if you allow users to have freedom, grandma will get hacked! We should all be told what to do and where to go and rely on gatekeepers for permission, for safety. (And no, of course there’s not any solution that would allow competent individuals to go outside the safe zone.)
The society should change such that grandmas could decide for themselves whether they want tech or not, and still have a comfortable life if they choose to not use it. In our current society, smartphones and the internet are forced on everyone. It's not really a choice any more. Which is quite sad.
My grandma does want tech because she loves sharing pictures with her grandchildren throughout the day. That doesn’t mean she wants to send money to Nigeria through a fake banking app?
Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are those documented anywhere?
Somewhat, but still very subjective. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#spa... You can still always get around them (at least my experience), but it just takes a lot of time
The guideline:
(b) Don’t submit apps that are indistinguishable from what's already widely available. Opportunistically creating variants of existing app categories or popular apps degrades App Store discovery, reduces overall app quality, and harms both users and developers. Certain kinds of apps, such as dating, flashlight, sound effects, wallpaper, simple timers, and fortune telling, are well established on the App Store and we will not accept new submissions unless they offer a meaningfully different or improved experience. We may remove these apps from the App Store going forward if they are not updated, improved, or do not attract customers. Other kinds of apps, such as drinking games, Kama Sutra, fart, and burp apps, are mediocre, low-quality, or low-effort and do not add value to the App Store. Repeated submissions of this kind may lead to removal from the Apple Developer Program.
Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#55I've published both iOS and visionOS apps, and my favorite rejection came from visionOS. When you click a link to open it in Safari, the system uses an existing Safari window if available. The app was rejected because the link didn’t work... the reviewer had Safari open somewhere outside their field of view. Approved on appeal :)
Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#56> But that’s not what happened at all. Godier proceeded through a series of escalations up to the App Review Board and the Review Board responded that they determined the original rejection was valid because, I shit you not, “We understand that the app includes a live tarot reading feature.” > It has no tarot function, no horoscopes, and nothing that I, or anyone else I’ve asked, would associate with astrology. I hav…
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Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#57The concept of computers that for programs to run on them need to be submitted to a committee who decides if the users computer can run it or not felt like where the tides were going for a long time.
Post AI this starts to feel absurd and look if OpenAI release a hardware device with an App Store will the process be days to weeks of review or will it be vibe code it in 40 minutes hit publish and it’s available to every device in 2 minutes?
Yeah think software is thankfully going towards a world where bureaucracy isn’t respected.
The apple decides what the box or square in your hand can do era is over.
Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The society should change such that grandmas could decide for themselves whether they want tech or not, and still have a comfortable life if they choose to not use it. In our current society, smartphones and the internet are forced on everyone. It's not really a choice any more. Which is quite sad.
My grandma does want tech because she loves sharing pictures with her grandchildren throughout the day. That doesn’t mean she wants to send money to Nigeria through a fake banking app?
You grandma can keep the „restricted“ flag on then. I will be happy to disable it on my device
Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#59[flagged]
Re: App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
My grandma does want tech because she loves sharing pictures with her grandchildren throughout the day. That doesn’t mean she wants to send money to Nigeria through a fake banking app?
You grandma can keep the „restricted“ flag on then. I will be happy to disable it on my device
My concern has been that companies with a huge install base (hi, Meta) would take advantage of this: "in order to provide you with the best experience, you have to turn off the restricted flag to install the next release of our app".
And then, billions of users cry out in pain as their private data is hoovered into the panopticon in the cloud.