.png "back to home page")
Or some person named Leo continually pressing the reject button without ever bothering to read my message because the automated system said that I was wrong.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Fix App Store Connect. I didn't even mention this in my thread, but an additional hurdle was having to accept a new tax agreement before I could resubmit. The ~30 second load time + the number of clicks it takes to accomplish anything is the icing on the cake of despair.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 27, 2021
Kafkaesque indeed. ? https://t.co/uLatXZKVec
— Michael Sippey (@sippey) August 27, 2021
This is a major news publication getting this wrong.
— Joe Rossignol (@rsgnl) August 27, 2021
Developers can already collect payments outside of the App Store—i.e. Netflix letting customers subscribe through its website.
Apple is simply letting developers email their iOS app users to advertise this payment option. https://t.co/WNsvj6etDR
Imagine how much things would improve if human beings read developers’ email replies to app review. https://t.co/W9gssYn33V
— John Siracusa (@siracusa) August 27, 2021
Luckily, I had a contact at Apple! I emailed them for help and carefully explained the issue. They told me to submit an appeal.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
People keep tweeting this thread with “Apple needs to fix this” and…. no, they don’t *need* to do anything. That’s what lock-in and monopolies allow for! If anyone could compete for these developers Apple would have an actual incentive to change. https://t.co/GqRK8DZtnb
— nilay patel (@reckless) August 28, 2021
Per the new guidelines: if an app is held up for a reason unrelated to the update, let the app through and ask the developer to fix it in the next release.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 27, 2021
Had a similar experience as an app developer in the past. We couldn't fix a critical issue affecting our users for almost a month because Apple was rejecting every app submission with vague reasoning.
— Lily Scott ?️⚧️ (@suchipi) August 27, 2021
A couple months later, Apple released a direct competitor to our product. https://t.co/YNzO8Vyb9f
“Such as email” — oh, thank you so much Apple for that privilege. Apple is committing not to shoot down any carrier pigeons bringing word of outside-of-apps payment mechanisms. Unless the users don’t opt-in to carrier pigeons. Then Apple can shoot away. What about smoke signals?” https://t.co/hIrYD6JQsQ
— Sar Haribhakti (@sarthakgh) August 27, 2021
I told her as nicely as I could, that I did not know what the problem was. Our promoted in-app purchases had different titles and descriptions, contrary to the complaint from App Review. The purpose of the call was for her to tell me what I needed to change.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Update: to Apple's credit, they called me last night to apologize and ask for feedback. Who knows if they'll actually implement it, but at least they are listening. What would *you* change about the App Store review process?
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 27, 2021
Most iOS ISVs fear @Apple reprisal from speaking out. Not this one. Yet another nightmare Apple iOS App Store story. $AAPL https://t.co/Jz59MRsoQh
— Patrick Moorhead (@PatrickMoorhead) August 28, 2021
Imagine how many more beautifully-crafted tools, like @MuseAppHQ, we’d all have… if living on the most advanced portable hardware didn’t mean living through the most advanced kafkaesque nightmare developer story. https://t.co/5RtLXTbiOX
— Ivan Reese (@spiralganglion) August 27, 2021
Makes sense as a guideline, except our titles and descriptions were different! Nonetheless, I changed the descriptions to be even *more* different than the titles. I replied to the message and resubmitted the app.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
The entire thing was orchestrated to… ?accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative.? https://t.co/XlKJkzVJAP
— M.G. Siegler (@mgsiegler) August 29, 2021
Must-read thread. The thing that really gets me about this story is that Hopscotch is a great, well-established, award-winning app. https://t.co/IdlhMks6RF
— John Gruber (@gruber) August 27, 2021
My ideas:
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 27, 2021
this triggers app submission ptsd. The worst thing is if an app gets rejected (even if it's their mistake) now you're stuck in a week long loop of back and forth until they realize they had a typo on their login ??♂️
— David (@ChalupaBatmanGG) August 27, 2021
? Alarms should be going off at Apple Park because Cabel and @panic are among the most taciturn and willing to compromise of Apple’s developer base. If Apple loses folks like Cabel, they lose everything important. ? https://t.co/EzySkxezqI
— Daniel Jalkut (@danielpunkass) August 28, 2021
I don't have a big point in sharing this story, except to shed some light on the horrible absurdities you face as an Apple developer. This was not my first, or even worst, run-in with App Review.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Hopscotch is a small company, I'm the CEO, AND I write code. And that's how a lot of the best apps work! My time is limited and precious to me. The way that Apple wasted my energy, gaslighted me, and sucked my time away made me furious.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
The concession now opens one way for app developers to more aggressively encourage their users to pay.https://t.co/6xpYwgVic9
— WTAJ News (@WTAJnews) August 28, 2021
I can feel your anger. Didn’t have this experience with Apple explicitly -but with enough other ‘gatekeepers’ like FB Marketing, Google Ads, Linkedin Marketing. It just drives you nuts esp. when you’re playing by their rules & still get ‘disqualified’ because they said so.
— Deniz Palo (@denlopalo) August 27, 2021
“For apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues.” ;-(
— Michael Tsai (@mjtsai) August 27, 2021
Apple is making a habit of dropping media briefings with a couple hours notice. In this case it was very much to put pressure on writers to get news out before it could be dug into. I’ve no doubt about it.
— Oliver Haslam (@OliverJHaslam) August 29, 2021
Apple PR works for Apple, not us. https://t.co/N9P52eRq6v
I'm certain that nobody on the app review team wants me or anyone else to have this type of experience. But it feels like a system optimized for the reviewers, rather than the developers publishing their apps. Like, this was an acceptable side-effect of their process.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
I'm tweeting a lot about this $100M settlement from Apple to US developers but I think there are big implications. If you accept $/don't opt out, you agree the App Store is not a monopoly as defined in the lawsuit.
— Joe Rossignol (@rsgnl) August 27, 2021
Apple said the class encompasses *99%* of developers in the US.
23. Ah, this letter explains everything:
— Ryan Jones (@rjonesy) August 27, 2021
- Apple was gonna win
- so getting anything is a win for the dev
- and Apple just wants it over
- so here’s the min. possible money and “change”
Dev gets to show big number and “change”.
Apple gets to stop publicly fighting their devs. pic.twitter.com/AQTvijsl8L
Make it easier to leave feedback. Filing a radar sends my blood pressure through the roof. Not to mention the brain damage I get from trying to navigate the system to reply to a months-old issue that I've already worked around by that time.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 27, 2021
Also, sorry, one more rant. With the exception of maybe Uber and Airbnb, App Review isn't kidding when they say they treat all developers the same, as every good app in the App Store, no matter how beloved, has at least five horror stories just like this: https://t.co/SEDDjoPOZK
— Cabel (@cabel) August 27, 2021
Today, I got a call from "Potential Spam" in San Jose California. I ignored the call, as one does with spammers.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
I don't know what's worse: an automated system with zero human oversight continually telling me (falsely) that our app is out of compliance.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Now we were three days after the original release date and I was still in suspense as to what we did wrong. Throughout this time, Apple continued to send me emails reminding me that Hopscotch was not following their guidelines.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
It's just the last straw. The combination of fear and the fact that I actually really *like* the people we work with at Apple kept me silent in the past.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Apple’s dismissiveness and hostility towards third-party developers is one of the big reasons I’ve never learnt how to write apps for their platforms.
— Alex Chan (@alexwlchan) August 27, 2021
(Despite using mostly Apple gear for my day-to-day computing.) https://t.co/y5cupN1IBx
I currently have a bug-fix update held up because of a profoundly incorrect rejection. The reviewer didn't understand a feature that's been in @bbedit since 2002. The behavior isn't what the reviewer claimed. Here's part of my response. Sounds like @SamJ0hn deserves a cake too. pic.twitter.com/wGUp19DnzT
— Rich Siegel (@siegel) August 27, 2021
Apple's App Store review process is marketed as a way to ensure only quality apps are in its store, but in reality it's a tool that gives Apple total control over the only app market available on a quarter of the world's smartphones. Apple cuts off its competitors to beat them.
— Lily Scott ?️⚧️ (@suchipi) August 27, 2021
Had episodes like those above at least 3 times. No idea how many have but i talked to a LOT of developers with comparable issues. They are just not public about it. That said you can resolve most with some work
— Ouriel Ohayon (@OurielOhayon) August 28, 2021
So just to clarify, the complaint was about Apple taking 30% of app revenue as payment… and the result is lawyers took 30% of the fund Apple are giving to small app developers when they usually only get 25%. Too funny. https://t.co/3NvbZ81nSx
— ilicco (@ilicco) August 28, 2021
The App Store review process is so so broken. https://t.co/yLf3bGyMSo
— Brian Fitzpatrick: Extended Dance Remix (@therealfitz) August 26, 2021
Measure success by the time for an app to get approved, not just the time for the developer to get a response.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 27, 2021
There's a lot of talk about the 30% tax that Apple takes from every app on the App Store. The time tax on their developers to deal with this unfriendly behemoth of a system is just as bad if not worse.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
.. and today, we submitted a minor bug fix. Guess what ? Rejected for the same reason as a couple of months back.
— Dermot Daly (@dermdaly) August 27, 2021
I appealed.
“A representative from the app review team will call you in 3 to 5 business days”
Groundhog Day.
But this time, I needed to get it off my chest. Perhaps another developer will read this story and feel a little less alone. Or even better, maybe someone at Apple will read it and feel bad enough to make some change. Thanks for listening.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
I think every mobile app developer would relate here. In particular in crypto. The app store review process is THE biggest tax on developing apps. Not the 30%.
— Ouriel Ohayon (@OurielOhayon) August 28, 2021
That said with years you learn how to deal. Plan and anticipate and resolve those cases.
But it's painful https://t.co/D9DQSzkLI7
The app was rejected because "our promoted in-app purchases had identical titles and descriptions which could be confusing to users."
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
I think I’ve only heard of one case where the bug fix *was* allowed to go through, and it was still delayed in the sense that it got rejected and the developer had to apply to take advantage of the new “no delay” rule.
— Michael Tsai (@mjtsai) August 27, 2021
True that #Apple is offering some concessions, but none of them go to the heart of the antitrust dispute (regardless of which side of it you are on).
— Michael Acton (@MActon93) August 27, 2021
App Store still only store on iOS, steering customers in-app still banned, IAP still mandatory. https://t.co/4cRZRbpf6g
(This stuff is why I very-rarely bothered to file radars, and a part of why I switched my day-job from iOS to web. Why waste hours building software to sell Apple hardware if they’re going to have such systemic disrespect?) https://t.co/8tjZNYJTRX
— Bryan Clark (@bryanjclark) August 26, 2021
Only Apple knows how often this happens. At scale,it will always happen, unfortunately. But how often? Are there KPIs for mistakes? https://t.co/h8Tkfw6qH8
— Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) August 27, 2021
I sometimes get asked why I didn’t put @coppiceapp on the Mac App Store. It's because releasing an app is hard enough, so if you can avoid the App Store then it's one less thing to stress about https://t.co/F4KjOzt3yp
— Martin Pilkington (@pilky) August 27, 2021
The Apple App Store Review process is totally broken and creates a worse experience for everyone who uses Apple products, but nothing will change until Apple is forced to allow competition through anti-trust lawsuits. https://t.co/UoxhknlPpX
— G̸l̵i̶t̷c̷h̸ ̵T̵V̶ ̸B̴o̷t̵ (@GlitchTVBot) August 27, 2021
The people I've met who work at Apple are lovely and have been incredibly supportive of Hopscotch. But there is something rotten in a system that treats developers in this way.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Here’s @cgartenberg laying it out: https://t.co/YMgoFVG7wk
— nilay patel (@reckless) August 28, 2021
Apple and the people who sued it for abusing its control of the mobile-app market reached a deal that they claim as a major concession from Apple. Yet some of Apple’s critics called it a “sham” that did little to change Apple’s control over apps. https://t.co/PpLchHYpa5
— NYT Business (@nytimesbusiness) August 28, 2021
When I looked at my voicemail, I realized the spam caller was someone from App Review. I called them back. No answer, so I left a voicemail.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Finally, they called me back, and I talked to a representative. She asked if I planned to update my app to correct the problem.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
I really disagree with the framing around the tech press tonight that Apple's new settlement with developers represents a big concession.
— Jack Nicas (@jacknicas) August 27, 2021
I don't see how this changes much. Some companies pretty much already do what Apple says it is suddenly allowing.https://t.co/QyZr3MHc3o
So, I submitted an appeal complete with screenshots. I had two things on my side: 1. The rejection made no sense and 2. The rejection was unrelated to my app update.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Every app I have released on the app store has been rejected for Sillier and Sillier reasons. I honestly don't know who passes the first time****
— Dawn 'Yohosie' Hosie (@yohosiefgc) August 27, 2021
****Not Twitter, to be 100% clear. Not my role. https://t.co/oTCUwTHYMi
A day later, the app was rejected again. At this point, I didn't know what to do. I was in a Kafkaesque universe where I had to blindly guess at what could be wrong and randomly change things until the bureaucrats let me through (with a one-day delay).
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
Here's the reply. They let us release the bug fix but told me that the rejection was valid and I would still need to update the app to comply with their guidelines. pic.twitter.com/4BhmUzXQVH
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
This is from an “A list” developer with a great Apple relationship. Imagine what happens to the “nobodies.” https://t.co/9N33NwZvSL
— Joseph☂Slinker (@theslinker) August 27, 2021
Also worth noting that Apple-platform developers are not a unified or organized group in any way.
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) August 28, 2021
“Developers” didn’t sue. Apple didn’t make a deal with “developers”. Some people sued, and Apple made a deal with them.
Most developers were uninvolved, unaware, and unrepresented.
Relevant thread for every iOS developer ??
— jesse squires ? (@jesse_squires) August 26, 2021
App Store Review in 2021: still garbage https://t.co/mOYhPCTDwC
To put this #Apple settlement in perspective: $100 million is roughly the amount that Apple made off @EpicNewsroom's Fortnite game *alone* while it was on the store.
— Michael Acton (@MActon93) August 27, 2021
Peanuts. https://t.co/QfOYK2uF9K
We submitted a bug fix update to Hopscotch this weekend. We wanted to get it out quickly to get ahead of the school year--schools don't update their apps very often after downloading them.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
She had first called me at 3:14pm, I had received an email at 3:16 later telling me that Hopscotch was still out of compliance. Now it was almost 4pm. It seemed unlikely that she had figured this out before that very moment.
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
App Tracking Transparency rules seem a mess. We had an app rejected for claiming it’s business model was enticing the user into tracking (it wasn’t). We had 3 calls with the App Review team who eventually agreed and then expedited the review. That was 2 months back….
— Dermot Daly (@dermdaly) August 27, 2021
But then I noticed that I had another email from Apple with the subject: Your app, Hopscotch-Programming for kids, does not follow the App Store Review Guidelines. pic.twitter.com/nyosSNPFjS
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
There are so many stories like this about the App Store review process, I wonder if any developers at all have ever gotten through the process without any issues. And it really makes you wonder how all those apps offering $100/week scam subscriptions make it through. ? https://t.co/YzekrGmsIy
— Thomas Reed (@thomasareed) August 27, 2021
I would love to see governments levy heavy fines on Apple and Google but not tell them specifically what they violated just to give them a taste of their own medicine. https://t.co/RLlIj5hx07
— Danny Roa (@dannyroa) August 27, 2021
She paused for a moment while presumably looking at our case. Then said, "oh, I think the automated software must have had a glitch. It just got escalated to me, but I saw that your rejection was a mistake and wanted to call and tell you."
— Samantha John (@SamJ0hn) August 26, 2021
"Apple isn’t changing how the App Store works because Apple doesn’t want it to change"https://t.co/SOJu7IZPwb
— Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP) August 28, 2021
Yup! Apple's "system" for developers is one of the most dysfunctional bureaucracies I've ever encountered in my life. And I'm sure you all have encountered some really dysfunctional bureaucracies. This one takes the cake, and eats it too. https://t.co/ke0CPaL9u0
— Jeff Johnson (@lapcatsoftware) August 26, 2021
Wrote a breakdown on how Apple successfully tricked so many into thinking it conceded something significant in last night’s class action settlement announcement, what it means for Epic’s Fortnite case, and why nothing is likely changing for developers. https://t.co/I06cjaWpsv
— Nick Statt (@nickstatt) August 27, 2021
Doing more work on this Apple App Store news and feel nothing's going to change. For a consumer, the benefits of the App Store far outweigh any incremental costs.https://t.co/qN87HcLTnT
— Gene Munster (@munster_gene) August 27, 2021