Apple's really making a mess of the App Store model

[Virtuo]

Lately, it seems, there has been an influx of what most would consider, meaningless app store rejections. I can only imagine how iPhone developers feel about this. With emerging alternatives (Android, WebOS, and others) in the picture one could only imagine, "What's keeping these developers from abandoning iPhone development?"
Costly time and resources go into developing an application, the last thing you need is for it to be rejected upon submission. Apple is really alienating itself here. These rejections are doing far more harm than good in the long run for the App Store model. I'm sure many others agree with democracy over dictatorship. What do you think?

 

[VirtualRain]

What's the actual rate of meaningless app store rejections?

1 in 10? That would indicate some serious flaws in the system
1 in 100? That's going to happen no matter how good your processes are
1 in 1000? That would be outstanding effectiveness

Without knowing the true rate of meaningless rejections, this discussion is meaningless.

 

[djellison]

A friend of mine has developed a SUPERB space science education/reference tool. It's beautiful, it's informative, it's accurate, it REALLY shows off the power in these devices.

But because it has links to Wikipedia and various space-science mission websites (and views them itself, without linking to Safari) - it's been rejected and he has to resubmit it as 17+

It took them 17 days to make that decision.

It'll take them another 17 to decide, again, with the new rating.

It's an utter farce. This guy has worked his NUTS OFF to produce an AMAZING application - and Apple are essentially,***** him over because of a ratings policy written by someone who is educationally subnormal.

I refuse to purchase ANY iTunes / Appstore content until the entire situation is fixed.

 

[spillproof]

Its because parents can't teach their children right from wrong or anything bad in fear of corrupting them.

 

[VirtualRain]

I'm no guru on the matter, but it seems fairly straight-forward to me...

if you develop an app that can in any way be used to access adult content on the internet, it has to carry a 17+ rating. Period. It doesn't matter what the intention of the application is, it could be an app to put babies to sleep, but if it CAN be used to access adult content, you can be sure kids will find a way to do so, and therefore if Apple wants parents to trust that their kids can't get to inappropriate content, all such apps need a 17+ rating so parents can block it. Simple as hell! Why do smart developers have trouble understanding this?

The app store rules seem pretty simple to me and backed by sound logic.

Apps that can potentially access adult content need a 17+ rating.
Apps that potentially violate copy write are rejected.
Apps that duplicate/replace carrier revenue generating services are rejected.

Now again, unless we really know the extent to which apps are rejected meaninglessly, this discussion is just a bunch of conjecture.

 

[rhett7660]

What's the actual rate of meaningless app store rejections?

1 in 10? That would indicate some serious flaws in the system
1 in 100? That's going to happen no matter how good your processes are
1 in 1000? That would be outstanding effectiveness

Without knowing the true rate of meaningless rejections, this discussion is meaningless.

Exactly. How does one know if this has REALLY gotten out of hand. Really the app store has some 50,000 or so apps and all we hear about are maybe 10 at most..... does that seem like it is really getting out of hand. Of course there is more out there that we are not hearing about. But really, we hear about a few here and all of a sudden the app store is out of control.

A friend of mine has developed a SUPERB space science education/reference tool. It's beautiful, it's informative, it's accurate, it REALLY shows off the power in these devices.

But because it has links to Wikipedia and various space-science mission websites (and views them itself, without linking to Safari) - it's been rejected and he has to resubmit it as 17+

It took them 17 days to make that decision.

It'll take them another 17 to decide, again, with the new rating.

It's an utter farce. This guy has worked his NUTS OFF to produce an AMAZING application - and Apple are essentially,***** him over because of a ratings policy written by someone who is educationally subnormal.

I refuse to purchase ANY iTunes / Appstore content until the entire situation is fixed.

So if he has worked his nuts off, put a 17+ rating on it and resubmit. How is apple messing him over? Because they are requiring something to be added to the app?

 

[neiltc13]

Surely it should be Apple that is applying these ratings, not the developers?