iOS Tired of Being "In Review"

[Littleodie914]

So here's my story. I know lots of people are having problems posting updates, having their apps "Ready for Sale," but not actually in the store, etc.

I haven't even made it that far.

I submitted my program on July 2nd, and it has been "In Review" since. 19 days later, with no word from Apple, and I completely missed the launch day, and all the fervor and publicity that would have brought. My app is free, so it's not about the profit. It's about paying $99 to be accepted into this developer program (a lot of money for an indie dev.), submitting your app in time for it to be "considered" for the launch, and then having to just sit for weeks waiting for it to be approved, while all these flashlight and moo'ing apps make it to the store. (Sorry Erica.)

Is anyone else in this same situation? I'm not saying we should receive immediate access to the store, I understand Apple's reasoning behind keeping the app number relatively small at first, but I don't seem to see the reasoning behind the enormous delays and lack of communication with developers who are just sitting in the queue.

And it would be nice if they at least gave us an ETA on when our apps would be launching.

 

[ethana]

Agreed. I am really afraid I'm going to "miss the boat" on this if I don't get my apps approved in a timely manner. I have four under review, and I just hope it doesn't take 30+ days for them to be approved.

That is 30 days for competitors to step in and 30 days of lost revenues.

 

[Littleodie914]

Agreed. I am really afraid I'm going to "miss the boat" on this if I don't get my apps approved in a timely manner. I have four under review, and I just hope it doesn't take 30+ days for them to be approved.

That is 30 days for competitors to step in and 30 days of lost revenues.

Yea, that's exactly how I feel too. In a week or two, when our applications finally hit the store, are people still going to be as interested? Or will they feel like they've already downloaded everything they'll need, and just stop checking?

 

[firewood]

Agreed. I am really afraid I'm going to "miss the boat" on this if I don't get my apps approved in a timely manner. I have four under review, and I just hope it doesn't take 30+ days for them to be approved.

That is 30 days for competitors to step in ...

Except that your competitors, assuming they didn't finish and submit way ahead of when you did, are in the same 30 day queue that you are.

 

[steve1717]

It is definitely frustrating but I'm confident they will improve the process eventually.

I wouldn't worry too much about missing the opening of the store. This is just the tip of the iceberg and the media frenzy really revolves around the big guys like Super Monkey Ball and AIM and that type of thing. Actually you might be better off this way because there's a ton of people going around dinging products with one stars for seemingly no other reason than to try to diss people's chances of succeeding. That behavior is certainly a byproduct of the media frenzy. Maybe by the time you guys see your apps out there, Apple will have solidified the review process to protect them.

Good luck and be patient!

 

[admanimal]

Except that your competitors, assuming they didn't finish and submit way ahead of when you did, are in the same 30 day queue that you are.

Except it appears that the processing order is almost random, so an app submitted yesterday might get in before an app submitted two weeks ago.

 

[Sbrocket]

Except that your competitors, assuming they didn't finish and submit way ahead of when you did, are in the same 30 day queue that you are.

The problem is that some apps, especially those submitted between Apple's deadline email (for inclusion in the AppStore at launch) and 12pm PDT on July 7th, were approved in a matter of days. I know mine took less than 36 hours to get through the gauntlet the first time, and now I've got an update that's been sitting in the queue for over a week.

Not to even mention the blackhole of a support email address that is devprograms@apple.com. Apple just doesn't have the manpower for iTunes Connect approvals and for ADC support. The devprograms@apple.com response time was really slow before - can you imagine what its like now? Two week response delay BEFORE the AppStore launch?

Come on Apple, get it together. You're going to have to lay off trying to get rock-bottom operating costs for once and give your developers the response times and support they need. This model of "you send an application and some text here, and maybe we'll send you a check in a month or so" isn't going to work. Period.

 

[firewood]

Be careful what you wish for.

One obvious long term solution is for Apple to raise the fees for being in the app store program to a high enough level to fund enough qualified staff to review uploaded apps in a reasonably prompt time frame.

Perhaps even a fee per app, or per app submission. $200 every time you upload a revised app or bug fix for review... that's about the going rate for support responses in the premium ADC membership categories. But I hear they reply fairly promptly.

Or maybe tiers. The $99 program gets log-jammed by zillions of freeware apps to taking 90 days before review. The $500 program guarantees 30 days. The $3500 programs gets responses in 2 business days for up to 8 submissions.

Is that what you want?

 

[MyAwesomeBlog]

I honestly think there's no need to panic as far as time is concerned. I think we've barely scratched the surface here.

The way I look at it, the ringtone industry has made a TON of money for some people... and still is today. I think the mobile application industry is gonna go
on for a loooooong long time.

If you can come up with a killer, creative idea, you shouldn't sweat it.

 

[Sbrocket]

Be careful what you wish for.

One obvious long term solution is for Apple to raise the fees for being in the app store program to a high enough level to fund enough qualified staff to review uploaded apps in a reasonably prompt time frame.

Perhaps even a fee per app, or per app submission. $200 every time you upload a revised app or bug fix for review... that's about the going rate for support responses in the premium ADC membership categories. But I hear they reply fairly promptly.

Or maybe tiers. The $99 program gets log-jammed by zillions of freeware apps to taking 90 days before review. The $500 program guarantees 30 days. The $3500 programs gets responses in 2 business days for up to 8 submissions.

Is that what you want?

Are you kidding me? What the hell do you think they're supposed to be doing with their 30% cut, sticking it in their cash reserves? That whole post is FUD - the AppStore would flop the second Apple implemented any of those schemes.

Code level support responses from Apple engineers is not an AppStore approval, and it shouldn't be treated as such. You can be sure they aren't wasting engineers' time with stuff like that. And the 90 days before review - what are you, nuts? This post, I mean, I can just barely describe it - words escape me.

 

[firewood]

...the AppStore would flop the second Apple implemented any of those schemes.

Not at all. I know a few freeware and 99 cent developers (including me) who would pay more than $99 to get a faster approval cycle. And for the big boys (Sega, Splash, etc.) with the most popular apps, 3 or 4 grand more in fees would be less than a rounding error in their expected annual revenues.

 

[ayasin]

Not at all. I know a few freeware and 99 cent developers (including me) who would pay more than $99 to get a faster approval cycle. And for the big boys (Sega, Splash, etc.) with the most popular apps, 3 or 4 grand more in fees would be less than a rounding error in their expected annual revenues.

This type of class system does nothing but hurt indie developers. I see what you're saying but I doubt it will have the effect you want. The end result will be that many indie developers will be pushed out of the scene because they can't support the update schemes that would keep them near the top of the list like a Sega or EA can and those guys can keep the pipe so full that the indie stuff gets all but ignored. A better solution might be to limit the number of apps from a single source (at least initially) and then as you ramp up staff open the flood gates more.

 

[admanimal]

I think Apple made a mistake by opening the gates to developers so quickly once the store launched. They should have continued to let new devs trickle in until they have the process going fast enough that it doesn't take more than a week for a new app/update to be approved.


Granted this is easy for me to say since I got into the program in April, but I still think it would be better for everyone.

 

[ghayenga]

So here's my story. I know lots of people are having problems posting updates, having their apps "Ready for Sale," but not actually in the store, etc.

I finally made it yesterday, two weeks after submitting my simple little free app.

I'm actually surprised I made it that quickly, I figured that for the launch Apple would put up the apps with the widest popular appeal to generate the best publicity while everyone was still hot about the app store. And my app, while extremely useful has appeal to a very small segment of the market.

I've already submitted my first update. We'll see how long that stays in review.

 

[itouch2007]

I finally made it yesterday, two weeks after submitting my simple little free app.

hey, what's it called? I might get it to play around?

 

[ghayenga]

hey, what's it called? I might get it to play around?

ScoreCounter, under the Sports category.

If you don't referee at fencing tournaments it won't be very useful for you though

 

[itouch2007]

ScoreCounter, under the Sports category.

If you don't referee at fencing tournaments it won't be very useful for you though

hehe, not really, but still would be nice to check what other developers from here are up to

Good news is that my issue is finally sorted out and now I can go trough process of acquiring certificates!

 

[chadwin]

definitely frustrating and disappointing

This is definitely a frustrating and disappointing process of getting an application "certified" for distribution in the app store.

Have had an application which we spent hundreds of hours developing in the "review" process for almost three weeks (turned in before the deadline) and no word whatsoever.

And I agree with the others - missing the launch is really bad - so much for first mover advantage - and to think we rushed it to meet the deadline.

Why not let the market determine which apps are quality instead of being such gatekeepers... an application to get into the program, an application to get device licenses, and an application to an app into the app store.

If this is how Apple is going to continue to support the developers that build the ecosystem around their devices then I have a fear that those same developers might shortly be supporting a more open environment. We definitely feel that our commitment of time and money is not being matched by apple.

 

[dgdosen]

Can anyone on this thread verify if Apple is stlll releasing applications? or are they on hold?

I know there might be a backlog, but is anything getting released?

 

[Dippo]

Can anyone on this thread verify if Apple is stlll releasing applications? or are they on hold?

I know there might be a backlog, but is anything getting released?

Well the number of apps in the App Store is increasing and over the past week it has only gone up about 100 apps. Started at 40 pages and now it is up to 45 pages.

 

[sushi]

For those who have submitted multiple apps, has there been a different approval time depending on the complexity of the app?

 

[slycrel]

My app finally went through just over a day ago. They are apparently still submitting apps. I orginally submitted the app on July 9th though, so I'm sure they are slogging through a ton of submissions and app updates.