Michal Ždanský The situation around app approval is getting more and more absurd. Apple in its course creates new unwritten rules without warning, due to which it will reject some updates or force developers to remove features or their apps will be pulled from the store. A few weeks later, they cancel them again and everything remains as before. Only Apple employees know what goes on behind closed doors, but from the outside it looks like chaos upon chaos.
In the past few months alone, Apple has banned calculators and links to apps in the Notification Center or sending files to iCloud Drive that weren't created by the app. He took back all these new rules after public pressure, and to the delight of developers and users, the features got back into the apps. But not without causing a little embarrassment to the company and causing a lot of wrinkles for developers to have to throw out features they've been working on for weeks or months.
The last case is the return of shortcuts to the application in the widget Drafts. Drafts can run URL schemes directly from the Notification Center, for example embedding the contents of the clipboard into the application. Unfortunately, Apple didn't like such an advanced function at first, apparently it didn't fulfill his vision of how the Notification Center should work. A few days ago, the developer learned by phone that the widget functionality may be reverting. But that was only after an update to his app was rejected because the widget had minimal functionality, as the very features that Apple didn't like were removed. Drafts, in addition to the returned functionality, got a useful function to trigger the last performed actions in the application in the widget.
The question remains whether Apple could have forgiven the entire bag. Despite greater openness towards developers, communication with Apple is more or less one-sided. Although the developer can object to the rejection of the application or update with the hope of defending the given function with arguments, he only has one chance to do so. Everything takes place via a web form. The luckier ones will also receive a phone call, where an Apple employee (usually just an intermediary) will explain why the rejection occurred or that they have taken back their decision. However, developers often receive only a vague explanation without the possibility of a response.
Although Apple has taken back most of the controversial decisions, the situation is not going away, and unfortunately, new unwritten rules continue to arise that trouble developers. Over the weekend, we learned about another feature ban, this time for the keyboard nin type.
This keyboard allows fast two-handed typing using swipes and gestures, and one of the advanced features is a built-in calculator. The user does not need to switch to another application or open the Notification Center to perform a quick calculation while typing, thanks to Nintype it is possible right in the keyboard. What about Apple? According to him, "performing calculations is an inappropriate use of application extensions". This is a very similar case to the calculator PCalc and Notification Center.
After the media coverage, the reaction from Apple she didn't wait long and keyboard calculations are enabled again. At least the developers didn't have to wait several weeks for the decision to be reversed, but only hours. However, as they aptly noted, it would be much easier if they did not have to remove the calculator from the application at all and the whole problem would be avoided.
It's ridiculous what little things Apple is dealing with when they have much more fundamental problems with the App Store. From crappy app search to fraudulent apps (eg antivirus) to apps that spam users with ad notifications.
Fuck someone's nose. So that he doesn't stumble.
For me as a developer, the worst are the wait times. If everything took place within hours, then ok. But it usually happens that a person submits an application for approval, nothing happens for a week (even longer in exposed terms), then, for example, Apple rejects the application with some nonsense, to which a person reacts, but then nothing happens for about a week. And then, for example, some semi-robot just replies that bad luck and it has to be done the way they want. So I edit something in a few hours and wait another week for them to approve it. In the final, the entire procedure can last for example three weeks and usually not less than a week.
I like Apple products, but sometimes it's really very frustrating :(.
Apple could start by setting limits on In-App purchases and removing obvious plagiarism of other apps :-(