App Store review ridiculousness: Apple rejects AppleInsider's iPhone X app update because ...

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  • Reply 81 of 94
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    I'd imagine you got caught by a keyword filter (whereas the fake game didn't). Isn't there some dispute process?

    Often, these notes are incredulous. After all, we're an Apple-focused website, they say. We should be among the first to add support for new Apple devices, they assert.
    Of course, if Apple hadn't made a silly design decision which makes all the apps have to be updated ....
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 82 of 94
    I thought everyone knew that buying into Apple was like living in Thneedville from the film Lorax. I see Apple insider is feeling the suffocation, it will only get worse as each year passes if Apple becomes more popular. You either follow the flock and put up with draconian rules or break free and take your chances elsewhere.

    This is why Google and Android and all the competition need to keep Apple on its toes, otherwise it will be bad for us consumers.
    edited December 2017 muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 83 of 94
    Geez, just resubmit. 
    1) Show the rejection notice.
    2) Why are you so late with the update request?
    3) Seek clarification.
    4) Accept even Apple can’t always get it right. The comparison is silly and immature, as is the public whining st this stag. 
    5) Perhaps it is a convenient excuse for being so late?
    6) Why don’t you have someone on staff with real world knowledge and experience to write a your own simple app if you are going to editorialize about such things. 


    randominternetperson
  • Reply 84 of 94
    dewme said:
    The rejection of the AI App update (boo) and the reference to the fake Cup Heads app actually getting through the app approval process (double boo) reminds us once again that Apple's approval process is far from perfect. It's easy to pontificate about Apple's perceived failings in its app approval process but these two cases are real living and breathing examples of the system failing to work as intended. Hopefully Apple can use these examples as test cases along with the negative backlash to improve their process.
    I somewhat disagree.  The "app approval process" is an on-going end-to-end process.  Therefore, at long as the end result is "correct" and the process wraps up fairly quickly, it's not a failure.  In the case of the Cup Heads app (which I know nothing about), the "process" included a quick correction for the initial mistake.  Therefore the process actually worked.  The fake app is not in the App Store.  Yes, it would be better if the initial review stage had zero "false positives" (approving a bad app) and zero "false negatives" (rejecting an appropriate app), but that's not the end of the process--and it's not possible.  I expect that, upon review, the AI update will be approved; if this is done expeditiously (say within a week), I'd say the process didn't "fail."  Processes can always been improved, but the two examples discussed here are hardly proof of a broken process.
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 85 of 94
    jSnivelyjSnively Posts: 429administrator
    Geez, just resubmit. 
    1) Show the rejection notice.
    2) Why are you so late with the update request?
    3) Seek clarification.
    4) Accept even Apple can’t always get it right. The comparison is silly and immature, as is the public whining st this stag. 
    5) Perhaps it is a convenient excuse for being so late?
    6) Why don’t you have someone on staff with real world knowledge and experience to write a your own simple app if you are going to editorialize about such things.
    Obviously we did, but Apple should be held accountable for this stuff. It stays in the dark because everyone is too afraid to talk about it for fear of repercussions. I actually advised them not to run this article in the first place, because I had no idea what would happen to the app if we did. Apple could've kept it in limbo forever.

    1) We did in the comments.
    2) Internal business reasons.
    3) Obviously, we did. It was confirmed it was because we ran a story about jailbreaking.
    4) Duh. This isn't the first time we've had problems with the process. The point was to illustrate, alongside the recent faux Cuphead fiasco, that the processes is still flawed and probably could use looking into. Other app devs here can attest to that. We wouldn't have run a story if it was a one-off event.
    5) It's not.
    6) We work closely with our contract iOS app developer. We don't have the budget -- or need -- to employ a full-time iOS developer. We're not some monolithic entity. We're a privately owned independent company that takes no external funding, and has, at any point in time, about 8-10 people working. Most of whom are editors.
    cgWerks
  • Reply 86 of 94
    jSnivelyjSnively Posts: 429administrator
    evilution said:
    Rules are rules.
    Remove the thread about jailbreaking, get the app in the store and reinstate the thread.

    All I'm reading here is "wah wah, I broke the TOC's and got caught".
    Your reading skills appear to be sub-par.

    lkrupp said:
    jSnively said:
    Some posts have been removed from this thread (including one of mine, and a few of neils.) Please keep the discussion on topic, and do not badger our editors. Everything that still exists in thread is fair game.

    edit:
    Also do not expect Neil to answer any more questions in this thread. You may direct your questions to me and I will answer them as best I can.
    Be sure to let us know when Apple reverses this rejection as I’m sure it will.
    We will let you know when it's ready for wide release. There's a draft sitting in the publisher that the editors have been waiting to hit publish on for a while now :)
  • Reply 87 of 94
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    While you're reporting on this, why not also look into how Apple deletes clearly legit reviews on the App Store and Apple Store product pages, yet still lets slide the hundreds of fake reviews that boost lame app ratings...
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 88 of 94
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    randominternetperson said:
    I somewhat disagree.  The "app approval process" is an on-going end-to-end process.  Therefore, at long as the end result is "correct" and the process wraps up fairly quickly, it's not a failure. ...
    I think it's more that the process is a bit broken for this to happen in the first place. I agree that ultimately the end result matters, but how did it even get here? They are relying on poor mechanisms (my guess) instead of actual human vetting. And, apparently not a properly weighted one if some new fake app got right through, whereas an update from a reliable source got rejected. Something is wrong in the middle, too.
    edited December 2017
  • Reply 89 of 94
    jSnively said:
    Geez, just resubmit. 
    1) Show the rejection notice.
    2) Why are you so late with the update request?
    3) Seek clarification.
    4) Accept even Apple can’t always get it right. The comparison is silly and immature, as is the public whining st this stag. 
    5) Perhaps it is a convenient excuse for being so late?
    6) Why don’t you have someone on staff with real world knowledge and experience to write a your own simple app if you are going to editorialize about such things.
    Obviously we did, but Apple should be held accountable for this stuff. It stays in the dark because everyone is too afraid to talk about it for fear of repercussions. I actually advised them not to run this article in the first place, because I had no idea what would happen to the app if we did. Apple could've kept it in limbo forever.

    1) We did in the comments.
    2) Internal business reasons.
    3) Obviously, we did. It was confirmed it was because we ran a story about jailbreaking.
    4) Duh. This isn't the first time we've had problems with the process. The point was to illustrate, alongside the recent faux Cuphead fiasco, that the processes is still flawed and probably could use looking into. Other app devs here can attest to that. We wouldn't have run a story if it was a one-off event.
    5) It's not.
    6) We work closely with our contract iOS app developer. We don't have the budget -- or need -- to employ a full-time iOS developer. We're not some monolithic entity. We're a privately owned independent company that takes no external funding, and has, at any point in time, about 8-10 people working. Most of whom are editors.
    1) Why in comments? Put it in the article 
    2) Bad decision?
    3) Not going to take time looking for the clarifying comment.
    4)  Never say an insulting duh. If it is so obvious, why claim you have to write the story to reveal something both obvious and “in the dark”? Of course the process is flawed; aren’t we all?
    5) You claim. But you are whiny about you, not others. Another excuse and bad “journalistic” decision. 
    6) If you are to editorialize about such things, you should have more than a customer to a developer’s knowledge. You too should be held accountable. 
  • Reply 90 of 94
    dewme said:
    The rejection of the AI App update (boo) and the reference to the fake Cup Heads app actually getting through the app approval process (double boo) reminds us once again that Apple's approval process is far from perfect. It's easy to pontificate about Apple's perceived failings in its app approval process but these two cases are real living and breathing examples of the system failing to work as intended. Hopefully Apple can use these examples as test cases along with the negative backlash to improve their process.
    I somewhat disagree.  The "app approval process" is an on-going end-to-end process.  Therefore, at long as the end result is "correct" and the process wraps up fairly quickly, it's not a failure.  In the case of the Cup Heads app (which I know nothing about), the "process" included a quick correction for the initial mistake.  Therefore the process actually worked.  The fake app is not in the App Store.  Yes, it would be better if the initial review stage had zero "false positives" (approving a bad app) and zero "false negatives" (rejecting an appropriate app), but that's not the end of the process--and it's not possible.  I expect that, upon review, the AI update will be approved; if this is done expeditiously (say within a week), I'd say the process didn't "fail."  Processes can always been improved, but the two examples discussed here are hardly proof of a broken process.
    Exactly. Well said. 
  • Reply 91 of 94
    nhughes said:
    Rayz2016 said:
    nhughes said:
    Call me very skeptical.  What was the actual wording of the rejection?  Without a direct quote, I'm let to believe that the "reason" is speculation rather than Apple's justification.
    Seeing the actual wording of the rejection would be nice. As is it sounds like secondhand info -- that you're reporting on what your dev told you. But did you see the rejection personally? What did it say?
    Why would we lie about this? What a weird reaction to have.


    I am somewhat confused. 

    What do they mean by “the app or its metadata contains information on jailbreaking”? Do you imbed the articles in the app? 

    Did the reviewer open open the app, click on an article and then reject it because the article was about jailbreaking?

    If that’s the case then this reviewer must be rejecting every app that touches the internet. 


    I can't say for sure, but I wonder if the rejection was part of an automated process, where it searches for certain banned key words. Regardless, we published a story about jailbreaking on Friday, and I learned about the rejection Monday evening, so, you can do the math. Or maybe not? Plenty of people in the comments accusing me of making this up.
    You obviously don’t understand the process. The metadata is specific to your own content. News aggregators can’t reasonably be held accountable. You can be. It seems pretty clear that some less than ideal process at Apple caused  Apple to issue a rejection because you may have been providing support for jail breaking. Geez; imagine what it would be like if there weren’t some kind of automated process for reviewing apps and their related meta data. More people and more time to get thousands of apps and updates approved every week? Day? And most of them not directly generating any (significant) revenue to pay for the cost of the review process.
  • Reply 92 of 94
    The updated app is now available and looks great. Thanks!
    jSnively
  • Reply 93 of 94
    nhughes said:
    Perhaps Apple Insider should stop glorifying jailbreaking. Apple has a right to protect their ecosystem, and if Apple Insider is going to work against that, then the app store rejection is well deserved.
    What.
    How was what I said difficult to understand? Oh, and I noticed the latest news about your app is that it was approved. Interesting. And I noticed that not a single word was said about your previous whining about getting the app rejected.
  • Reply 94 of 94
    jSnivelyjSnively Posts: 429administrator
    I have closed this thread, and removed some comments because apparently the trolls come out when they think it's safe. 

    You are welcome to further discuss the topic here:
    https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/203322/

This discussion has been closed.