Being a small fry iPhone app developer, that being I do so in my own spare time because I like developing apps for the iPhone, I’ve simply got to comment about the App Store review process as it stands.
I won’t make any individual comments about my personal rejections I’ve had except to say. I have had a number of rejections.
One update got rejected numerous times because apparently if you use a UIWebView where the user might be able to get to Google and therefore access pictures of <shock>naked people</shock> then you have to rate your App as 17+. Let us ignore the fact that they could just close your app and go to mobile Safari shall we, it would be by far easier?
Another one I reason I’ve been rejected for features not doing something Apple think they should, yet that very same feature was actually in the version before it…. still on sale in the App Store. Inconsistent reviewing doesn’t even begin to cover it!
So this leads me on to a blog post I read today from Joe Hewitt. For anyone who doesn’t know who Joe is, he is the guy who wrote the amazing Facebook app for the iPhone.
I have only one major complaint with the App Store, and I can state it quite simply: the review process needs to be eliminated completely.
Does that sound scary to you, imagining a world in which any developer can just publish an app to your little touch screen computer without Apple’s saintly reviewers scrubbing it of all evil first? Well, it shouldn’t, because there is this thing called the World Wide Web which already works that way, and it has served millions and millions of people quite well for a long time now.
Go and read his excellent post now at what I totally agree with…. especially as I have one app that I originally submitted a month ago, awaiting approval!
