Understanding the Apple And Its Guidelines
Being a mobile developer is far more than just writing Swift or Kotlin code. We should know more and more. We should know how to use popular design tools, have a design eye a little at least, and be familiar with user experience. The list can be varied easily. One of the most important things on the list is the guidelines.
There are six kinds of guidelines for iOS Developers. They are Guideline of Human Interface, App Store Review, Apple Wallet, Apple Pay Marketing, App Store Promo Artwork, and App Store Identity.
Having deep knowledge of the App Store Review Guideline is quite critical. Assume that you are working at your startup and building an ordinary dating app while burning your limited money and important time. App Store Review Team will probably reject the app and unfortunately, you’ll learn the truth after completing the whole MVP wasting several months. Here is one of the bad stories :(
App Store Review Guideline is not our enemy, the friend that we should keep closer.
I have been developing Android and iOS mobile applications for years, especially iOS apps. There are some cases I have faced or heard that other developers experienced. I want to share them with you. I would appreciate it if you shared your own experience in the comments.
2.3.1 Performance
You are playing with the rule that the App Store Guideline has if you want to publish your app in the App Store. You should be open and honest throughout the process. Apple should know everything about your app and they can be true.
Some developers use remote config to pass the review. Then they change UI and behavior dynamically according to the flag with backend response. Apple is quite strict and clear on this issue.
Don’t include any hidden, dormant, or undocumented features in your app. … We work hard to make the App Store a trustworthy ecosystem and expect our app developers to follow suit; if you’re dishonest, we don’t want to do business with you.
Apple can terminate your developer account easily according to this code. Don’t forget this, if your developer account is terminated, your money in the account is also confiscated by Apple. You lost your all money waiting to be withdrawn.
Assume that you hid a disallowed thing by using a feature flag while your app is being reviewed. But they can review the app then if users report contacting with App Store Review Team.
4.3 Spam
This code prevents the App Store from the copy-paste apps. Apple wants to protect your brilliant idea and balance of supply and demand.
The best and best-known example can be dating apps rejected a lot these days for this 4.3 Spam code. I read a lot of tweets or opinions saying “Don’t build dating apps for the App Store anymore, Apple doesn’t accept them.” It’s true but there is a missing point. Let’s read the code from Apple.
… We will reject these apps unless they provide a unique, high-quality experience.
Providing a unique experience is the key here. I believe in this rule and tried my best last year. I have built a unique dating app matching people based on their voices while hiding personal appearances before being matched. Yes, it’s published definitely!
5. Legal
Publishing our app in the App Store doesn’t mean that the app is legal completely. App Store Review team is reviewing all apps according to their codes but we are still responsible for the laws of the countries where the app is available.
If you already watched the Silicon Valley series, — if not, you should watch— you will remember the episode about the COPPA. If you didn’t watch the episode the great Medium story is summarizing and reviewing in detail.
Let’s talk about banking apps. Assume you are building a banking app for the USA market. It’s a free mobile banking application that provides simple banking services such as balance inquiry, mini-statement, bill payment, etc. for bank customers. There are no purchasing or money-transferring services in this App. But you cannot publish the app, unfortunately. This scenario was experienced in Feb 2014 by a developer sharing the problem in StackOverflow. The app is rejected and the author shares the reason behind the rejection after some time.
“It seems that as far as I use cryptography in my App, and regarding the fact that due to USA regulations, sending encrypted data outside the USA without any license conflicts with laws, the AppStore has rejected my App..”
Another very popular category is gambling apps. It depends on the laws of each country. Google has official documentation about countries and their restrictions on gambling apps. Let’s read more from here.
5.6.4 App Quality
Building a perfect app and marketing is difficult. It should be well-designed with seamless functionality. Because Apple wants to keep the quality high of the App Store. There sometimes Apple can advise you to improve functionality if it’s not enough.
Let’s dive deep into the MUD’s story.
MUD was an iOS App Icon Generator that took place at the App Store for ~9 months. We co-founded the app with Salim Gürsoy. It was designed and planned great. It’s not an ordinary app icon application. You would create your custom icons with the generator inside or download one of them already designed well for you. We also created collections for special days or moods you feel.
There were a lot of refund requests at the beginning of the app. However, we used Firebase perfectly to understand users’ behaviors and understand what users suffer while using MUD. It worked great and we started to sell in-app-purchases all around the World after doing several iterations. I got an email from Apple titled “Please read the message carefully, as it requires your immediate attention”.
App Review 2022–09–22
Hello,
We‘ve identified a pattern of behavior associated with your Apple Developer Program account that is not consistent with the Developer Code of Conduct. Your account is required to address these serious issues:
- … (It’s the issue with pay-wall design)
- The paid digital content and services in your app do not provide long-lasting value and utility to App Store users.
Per guideline 5.6.4, apps on the App Store must provide the high-quality experience our users expect.
To maintain your app’s availability on the App Store, please provide a written statement within 14 days of the date of this message detailing the improvements you plan to make. Your statement should include the following information:
- A thorough explanation of the issues we identified.
- Specific, verifiable steps you will take to resolve this issue and prevent its recurrence.
If we don’t receive an improvement plan within 14 days, your app will be removed from the sale. If your app is removed from the sale, the TestFlight version of this app will also be unavailable for external and internal testing and all public TestFlight links will no longer be functional.
If you submit an improvement plan and it is approved, you will have 14 days to implement the improvements. If you have any questions, reply to this message and let us know.
Best regards,
App Store Review
It was interesting because MUD has lots of free and paid users all around the World and growth has accelerated. Session time per user was 8+ minutes. It was an acceptable and interesting result to make money and to to growth the business. We were too busy those days to make the huge improvements that Apple wanted. Therefore I prepared a statement about what MUD provides long-term value for paid users. It was rejected, too.
Hello,
Thank you for your patience as we reviewed your written statement. The subscription… (It’s related to the first part of the rejection.)
The improvements you described in your written statement are insufficient to resolve the issues we previously identified. Specifically, your plan did not include how to improve the overall app quality in terms of new features or content for the paid users within 14 days. It would be appropriate to submit a revised plan that addresses all of the issues we previously identified. A successful plan identifies verifiable actions that will be taken to ensure your apps comply with our guidelines.
If you do not respond with a written statement detailing the improvements you plan to make to address the issues identified in our initial notice, your app will be removed from sale and your Apple Developer Program account may be terminated. Once you provide a written statement and it has been approved, you will have 14 days to implement these improvements. If you have any questions about this information, please reply to this message to let us know.
Deliberate disregard of the App Store Review Guidelines and attempts to deceive users or undermine the review process are unacceptable and are a direct violation of Section 3.2(f) of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement. Continuing to violate the Terms & Conditions of the Apple Developer Program will result in the termination of your account…
They treated me removing the app and developer account if we didn’t add new entertaining features make the app valuable for the App Store or share the interesting roadmap in detail. MUD is not our main job. Therefore we thought we didn’t have enough time to pivot the app and are faced with the issue that the developer account can be removed. Then I had to remove the app, unfortunately.
Expedite Requests
It’s a great opportunity if you suffer in a critical situation, such as a login screen crash. But this feature should be used if you need it. There can be ideas sometimes to expedite requests for the new feature. There is some risk in using “expedite request” frequently. If you abuse the system, Apple can reject your requests in the future. You should convince Apple that the new version is critical to publish as soon as possible and it shouldn’t be used repeatedly.
You can reach out for the expedite review by clicking here.
I wonder what is your story and the experience during app publishing in the App Store. Let’s meet in the comments.
