preface
I personally have 15 apps on the App Store, including active, passive, and many completed but unsuccessful apps, I have completed more than 30 apps independently, and I have had at least hundreds of interactions with App Store approval, in which various situations have occurred:
- Successful app launch
- Shortly after launch, the App was officially featured on the App Store (multiple times)
- Application review was rejected. Procedure
- App review was accidentally hurt (countless times)
- App was removed from the app store (only once, also by policy)
- App review delayed for violating App Store policy (both friendly and non-friendly)
- Threatened to shut down the developer account
Recently, many companies and individuals, including me, encountered numerous problems in the process of reviewing their apps, some of which were in the state of “waiting for review” or “under review” for one or two months.
When this happens, most people react in the same way, try to contact through the official channel of App Store Developer, and then wait for nothing, and then endless ridicule.
In this article, I have my own thoughts and understanding of the App Store.
Why does the App Store need a black box review
The question of why the App Store has a black box review, once asked, is almost always answered with dirty words. These answers are inadequate to explain the behaviour of such a large market.
My view on the problem is this. First of all, the application market for the application of the entry criteria, is bound to have a rule, this need not say more.
The Rules of the App Store are basically reflected in the open App Store Review Guidelines, but more details are actually black box, not public, and often change, and there are often double standards.
I think “black box operation” is an inevitable result of the game.
The App Store’s huge market and the limitations of the App Store review system are now clear to everyone. The reality is that no matter what the App Store’s approval rules are, as long as they are understood (whether they are publicly available or by outside guesses), there are bound to be a number of individuals and teams making money by exploiting loopholes, the most famous example being sock puppet bags.
If the App Store were to review more strictly, it would certainly help deter bad actors, but it would hurt other compliant apps.
If the App Store were to be more lenient, it would certainly reduce the number of accidental injuries to compliant apps, but it would certainly encourage more people to try to circumvent the policy.
The question is no longer whether auditing policies should be strict or lax, but rather, auditing policies must be opaque.
If the App Store made all the details of the review process public now, there would be hundreds of applications submitted the next day, all of them skirting the review policy. As a result, as long as the App Store continues to operate, the policy just announced is invalid and needs to be replaced with a new one. So the only policy that really makes sense for the App Store is a black box policy.
This is not my personal preference, but my analysis of the process of the game. “We have a scale, but we can’t tell you” is my understanding of the App Store. I don’t like this state of affairs, but I think this state of affairs, not by design, but by necessity.
A difficult answer to give
A common joke is that when your App has been rejected or delayed by Apple, you can’t get a clear answer on what’s wrong and what should be changed.
One of the reasons for this is that, as mentioned above, certain audit details are not publicly available.
The other reason is that the App Store doesn’t actually know if your App is breaking any rules.
For example, an application, through the points wall to brush their keywords, brush the list, this is an obvious violation. The App Store monitors this behavior primarily by data anomalies, such as an App that has been downloaded 50 times a day and suddenly has 5,000 downloads.
However, conventional promotion means can also achieve this effect in many cases. In addition, the current machine swiping App Store reviews can be close to the effect of human comments, which makes it more difficult to define the violation of an App.
Further, let’s say my app suddenly gets 200 million downloads, 100 million of which are due to normal promotion that I paid for, and 100 million of which are due to malicious slander by my competitor who hired 100 million bots to download for me (trying to get my app judged to be illegal). I think it would be hard for any team to judge this App, and it’s not a hypothetical situation, it’s something that happens all the time on the App Store.
So, if your app is also delayed, I think there’s a good chance of one of two things:
-
Your application has been deemed a violation by the reviewers and has been punished
-
Reviewers suspect that your app is breaking rules, but they’re not sure what you’re doing and don’t have any concrete proof
I’ve seen a lot of rejections or successful appeals, and two of them are worth looking at:
- Some App used technical means to hide some pages, and the audit team somehow magically pulled out the page and sent it back, of course, the team was seriously warned.
- An App uses a small trick to implement hot updates, but this hot update is only for the implementation of a feature, there is no intention to cheat the review. After being approved by the card for a long time, I contacted to inform the existence of this technology, and the App Store review side replied that as long as this function is removed, the normal launch, which is exactly what happened later.
Double standard, divided into a variety of cases
When it comes to App Store reviews, I think there are three main categories:
- One case that does escape criticism is the news that big company executives are talking to Apple to give their apps a free pass
- Second, there is no need for conspiracy theories on the fact that manual auditing is inherently uneven
- More likely, the behavior you see in an app is the result of fooling the review team
My conclusion
Personal opinion, for reference only.
Don’t be conspiratorial about App Store reviews. The defects of the current audit system have delayed my earning, delayed my work and wasted a lot of my time and energy. In this situation, I am also distressed, but I think the reasonable attitude should not be “Apple pit dad”, but:
The sheer number of apps on the App Store, the complexity of how apps violate rules, and the difficulty of getting the right verdict would be daunting for almost any team. The “pit” we are facing is mainly because the problem itself is too difficult to solve, rather than “ruthless exploitation of capitalism”.
Anger and complaining are not good for work.
A few suggestions:
- Keep up with App Store policies and news, and try not to let gray behavior be associated with your App
- When you have the opportunity to communicate with the audit team, actively explain when you felt the audit team suspected you, but you did not do it
- If you do break the rules, don’t wait to be penalized. Open a new pit and use your time wisely
The last
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