Apple gives insight on App Reviews

healthyutech · 09-04-2009, 09:02 PM

From New York Times: "Apple receives 8,500 new applications and updates to applications each week. The company employs a team of 40 full-time trained reviewers, and each application is independently evaluated by two separate reviewers before getting a green light. The company said that 95 percent of iPhone applications are approved within 14 days of being submitted."

So based on these numbers, and given a 5 day work week, there are 1700 reviews per day that are looked at by two people. On a normal work day of about 8 hours, this gives only 5-6 minutes of review time for each app by two people. This is pretty crazy. My app was update was waiting patiently for 16 days to get rejected for some dumb error...and it took them only 5-6 minutes to figure it out.

I wonder at what point Apple says is a critical mass to beef up their support. i am sure their billions can handle the overhead, no?

choron · 09-06-2009, 05:02 PM

Interesting figures, indeed, 40 people is a pretty inadequate team size given the number of reviews they have to face.
I wonder if all the reviews are made in the U.S. Given Apple is a global company it could well spread its test team geographically, they could employ lower salaries from abroad for silly fart-like type of apps for instance. I
wonder if people whose apps make network connections did see connections from outside the US during their review period ?

TunaNugget · 09-07-2009, 09:22 AM

In other threads, people whose apps include metrics have reported pings from locations around the globe (but also from Cupertino).

Also, 40 full-time employees could be trying to oversee a bazillion part-time contractors. And judging from the results, they probably are.

mnemonic_fx · 09-07-2009, 10:02 AM

Global company, but I think if you want to discuss more about the app with the app review team, everything is decided from Cupertino.

This 2 weeks review queue is also a proof that no matter where your users are, everything needs to be released from Cupertino. Inefficient, in my opinion.

But, maybe if you do not target the users globally, it won't be this slow.

TunaNugget · 09-07-2009, 10:22 AM

Real queues don't work that way. The delays are intentional.