Here is a (hopefully) golden advise I got early when I started to deal with Apple/itunes/appstore etc. And I can now back that with my own registration experience.
CALL THEM!
I know it is internet time. I hate calling. But I called. And I always(!) had someone very competent on the line after maximum of 2min wait and the call always helped my case.
My most current example: Sent an email through the portal last Wednesday on changing my individual account to my newly founded company.
No answer for two days. I called Friday 4pm pacific. Got a case number and, five minutes after the call, the account change email. Went through the procedure. Got email stating someone will contact me and it can take several days. As they advised me, I nevertheless called again with that key I received and my case number today (monday morning). And the guy told me he sees me in the system and will make sure I get to the next step asap. And I received the email asking for business documents 2h later.
Who did I get that great advise from? The Apple hotline itself, back in November when I called about an incorporation question that I didn't find an answer to online. They strongly advised to call for business critical things and you know what, so far that worked beautifully.
Did I mention I typically hate to call?
Markus
Thats great. But in my case i live in colombia and i dont know how to call apple from here. Can somebody get me the number. Thanks
__________________
Independent developer
Please excuse me by my bad english. English is not my native language
The same advice was given at a San Diego Software Industry Council presentation that I attended last Thursday. Alex Shah of Facedouble.com shared his development and store experience. As well as the phone number.
(408) 974-4897
(800) 633-2152
From outside of the U.S., use the first number.
You can view the slides used in the presentation, and a video of the presentation here. (It's right in the left-hand column of the home page.)
The only thing in this presentation that I don't fully agree with is "don't drink the kool-aid". Alex side-stepped Objective-C by writing largely in Javascript/JQuery (and PhoneGap) using WebKit.
Anyway, Alex's experience involved 3 months of waiting to have his business developer agreements completed. He said that he never received any request for corporate papers (and so a lot of that time was unnecessary waiting for an email that never arrived), and strongly urged people to FAX the documents proactively, and to contact Apple at the number above if things bog-down.
The FAX number:
408-974-1053
He gave out another FAX number and emails for the specific case of dealing with banking (the SWIFT code for his bank, Union Bank of California, failed to validate) - you'll find those in the slides.
Last edited by jtara; 02-24-2009 at 10:49 AM.
Reason: spelling
This thread raises a couple of questions for me. I was just about to register as a developer, when it occurred to me that I should register my fictitious name/DBA first. The problem is that here in PA, this is a sloooow process (not to mention expensive, coming in at over $300 including the newspaper ads).
Should I register as an individual to start the developer registration wait period, then start the DBA process, and then later, after both Apple and the state have worked through their delays, call Apple and try to switch my account over the DBA?
-John.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkusN
Here is a (hopefully) golden advise I got early when I started to deal with Apple/itunes/appstore etc. And I can now back that with my own registration experience.
CALL THEM!
I know it is internet time. I hate calling. But I called. And I always(!) had someone very competent on the line after maximum of 2min wait and the call always helped my case.
My most current example: Sent an email through the portal last Wednesday on changing my individual account to my newly founded company.
No answer for two days. I called Friday 4pm pacific. Got a case number and, five minutes after the call, the account change email. Went through the procedure. Got email stating someone will contact me and it can take several days. As they advised me, I nevertheless called again with that key I received and my case number today (monday morning). And the guy told me he sees me in the system and will make sure I get to the next step asap. And I received the email asking for business documents 2h later.
Who did I get that great advise from? The Apple hotline itself, back in November when I called about an incorporation question that I didn't find an answer to online. They strongly advised to call for business critical things and you know what, so far that worked beautifully.
I was just about to register as a developer, when it occurred to me that I should register my fictitious name/DBA first. The problem is that here in PA, this is a sloooow process (not to mention expensive, coming in at over $300 including the newspaper ads).
I'll tell you what my attorney told me - but of course you should ask yours, and this may not apply in your state.
He told me that I did not have to wait-out the publication period to use the fictitious name. I assume I will get some proof from the state that I can submit to Apple.
Of course, if somebody objects upon publication, then you are in a bit of a pickle.
My situation is a bit different, as I've incorporated and also doing a fictitious name. The fictitious name is the same as the corporation name, just without "Corporation". I figured I'd want to use the shortest name possible on the App Store.
The incorporation took about a week, though I don't yet have any paperwork, the fictitious name, or a tax ID. For whatever reason, I have to wait till the 20'th to go into my attorneys office and vote for myself, etc. I'm hoping I can get some paperwork out of him before then. It's frustrating, because I know I have another long wait with Apple once that's all done.
I'm glad I signed-up as an individual, so that I could go ahead and test my app on real hardware! By the time all the waiting is over, the bugs should be pounded into submission and then some...
When I first applied, I did it under an individual, that way it was quick and I got all the tool to start working on my app. When it was getting close to deployment time, I called Apple and had them switch my account to a company, which took about two weeks.
Hope this helps.
-B
Welll when people said it was quick to get registration approved as an individual they were right.
I completed my registration as an individual (our company wont be set up for a few more months) at around 7:00am this morning. I was quite surprised to received my activation code at 8:46am.
I think its probably due to some legal/paper stuff that company registration takes longer. Will see in a few months how it goes to do our company registration.
Due to legalities and various forms of lawyer ball, reg'ing as a business will take longer. They even force you to fax info to them. No emailing. No .pdf's. You must use a fax...in 2009. What gives Apple? You don't want a telegraph? You sure?
It seems to be taking longer than usual at the moment - at least here in the UK. I submitted a company application on 23rd March and it's still being verified as of today. I've called them twice. They were extremely pleasant and helpful on the phone but the only help they could offer was to confirm that the application was on their system, that it was being processed and that it usually takes 'about three weeks' so I should expect something to happen 'any time now' The first time I called, the girl gave the impression that they used an external contractor to do the verification and exactly how long it takes was partly down to them.
It's doubly frustrating as, here in the UK, you can verify that a company name is genuine in about ten seconds thanks to the Companies House website (which lets you lookup the basic details of any limited company in the UK for free) I can only guess that they're experiencing a rush of applications at the moment following the 3.0 announcement.
Only 5 days and you're complaining? There are people that have waited MONTHS before getting approved. Supposedly, if you apply as an individual the acceptance is faster than as a business entity.
Personally, I think there are too many developers writing crappy applications. Apple needs to slow down the acceptance of new developers, or at the very least, cancel those that are not producing quality apps.
Amen, yes they need to slow down big time... and people should realized that now the gold rush for everyone is over. Only quality apps will afford you to quit your day job, the way it should be.. No point in releasing a garbage app anymore other than to clutter up the store.
Would be great if we could petition to Apple to have these kinds of apps removed from the store.
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