Been waiting since May 8, with 3 rejections. Last binary submitted around 9 days ago They logged on twice, once friday, once saturday, and since then there's been no activity and still in review.
Is there any way to talk to a supervisor, or ombudsman? This process really has killed my app. I wanted to get my app time to market for school, but school's either over or almost over, they've killed my chances for success.
Just received the "Ready for Sale" email from Apple. Funny, cuz I checked iTunes Connect maybe 20 minutes before that and it wasn't updated. I originally submitted around May 10th, then updated it myself a few days later, then got a rejection email about 8 days later (image trademark issue). Resubmitted right away. I rejected it 2 days after that to upload a fix I had to make. Then finally 7 days after that it was approved. Phew! That took way too long. I wish you didn't go to the back of the queue if you need to send an update prior to it being approved. Oh well, it's been approved now.
Just waiting for the update to appear in the store. Seems to take a while for their index servers to kick in I guess.
In the first day my app (My Blacklist) has received around 20 downloads (at $1) in the Lifestyle category. Does anyone know if this is a reasonable figure or should it be much higher (given it has been displayed in the "new releases" list)? Also, how far is it likely to drop?
I realise these questions are dependant on many factors (including luck), but some generalised idea would be great.
On another note, I have had several reviews but the App store (on the iphone itself) shows none unless you click through to the review page. Does anyone know why?
I first submitted my trivia game, Pub Trivia, on April 30.
Rejected on May 8: (8 day response)
Rejected on May 13: (5 day response)
Rejected on May 18: (5 day response)
Rejected on May 22: (4 day response)
Ready for Sale on May 31: (9 days response)
This may be what annoys me the most about the whole process (though really, it is hard to choose) – that they seem to stop their review process as soon as they find a single issue. Why can't they just do a thorough test of the app the first time, and send back a list of all the problems?
I really hope some pissed off developers stage some kind of protest or other major media event at WWDC and bring some attention to this crap.
I don't like the fact that they re-review the whole app when you update. They've rejected my update twice for things that have been in the app for a month now and it has nothing to do with my update! My update is very minor!!!
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This may be what annoys me the most about the whole process (though really, it is hard to choose) – that they seem to stop their review process as soon as they find a single issue. Why can't they just do a thorough test of the app the first time, and send back a list of all the problems?
I really hope some pissed off developers stage some kind of protest or other major media event at WWDC and bring some attention to this crap.
I'm not sure if they actually stop testing when they find one issue. Our app was rejected for saying something along the lines of "Compatible with 3.0". We resubmitted and were rejected again about 5 days later for having the call button not alert iPod touch users that they can't actually make a call. I can totally understand this request. What is irritating about it was that they did not test our application for the second denial. It was a queued issue, which they could have easily saved themselves and us time and money by sending both issues in the same email. Maybe it's a limitation of their system, but it sure needs to be updated. It would have meant one less review process freeing it up for another app.
I don't like the fact that they re-review the whole app when you update. They've rejected my update twice for things that have been in the app for a month now and it has nothing to do with my update! My update is very minor!!!
I wouldn't worry about this, it's just different reviewers who catch different things.
I hope this is not off-topic, but I think I have found a good explanation for this nonsense of rejections.
When I heard about the first rejections, I just thought that Apple was setting the bar pretty high. But then I saw that fart apps where approved by the dozen, and very complex apps were rejected for ridiculous reasons, so that did not explain the rejections. Then I saw rejections for things like a bad word in a tweeter feed. So I thought that maybe Apple is just hiring incompetent minimum wage reviewers. But then I started to see rejections where the reviewer did his best to find objectionable content, like expressly searching for an objectionable book, in a very well done application.
That’s when it struck me. I believe that the culprit is that Apple uses Management By Objectives . To make it short, while maybe good in theory, it’s a method where employees are evaluated against arbitrary criteria, that in reality don’t measure the real quality of the employee’s work and have pretty random outcomes. As the Wikipedia article says, this method often leads to unethical behavior from employees in order to reach their objectives. I have been subjected to such a method until I quit my job recently and I have seen the disastrous results first hand.
So how does MBO work? Let’s take a well known example. My ex worked in a call center. The only objective they had to reach was to be below a certain arbitrary average duration of customer calls. The actual quality of the support didn’t matter. So what happens when a CSR was above the average? He would make fake excuses to finish calls that would apparently take a long time: “sorry, can’t hear you”,”call back when you have the printer serial number”, “reboot and call back”… whatever the problem really was.
So my point is, I believe Apple rates reviewers on average review time. And since finding any defect is ground to reject an app, some reviewers will do whatever they need to find any rejection reason as quickly as possible. This would also explain why sometimes app that are quick to review are not rejected for the same ridiculous reasons as well done but complex ones are.
But then, you are going to tell me, why don’t they also blanket approve applications? I believe there must be a two stage review or an approval report written, that would explain why sometimes apps are approved only many days after reviewer usage. And I guess there is also a huge risk if an app is later found to be unsuitable, like the baby shaker thing.
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I hope this is not off-topic, but I think I have found a good explanation for this nonsense of rejections.
When I heard about the first rejections, I just thought that Apple was setting the bar pretty high. But then I saw that fart apps where approved by the dozen, and very complex apps were rejected for ridiculous reasons, so that did not explain the rejections. Then I saw rejections for things like a bad word in a tweeter feed. So I thought that maybe Apple is just hiring incompetent minimum wage reviewers. But then I started to see rejections where the reviewer did his best to find objectionable content, like expressly searching for an objectionable book, in a very well done application.
That’s when it struck me. I believe that the culprit is that Apple uses Management By Objectives . To make it short, while maybe good in theory, it’s a method where employees are evaluated against arbitrary criteria, that in reality don’t measure the real quality of the employee’s work and have pretty random outcomes. As the Wikipedia article says, this method often leads to unethical behavior from employees in order to reach their objectives. I have been subjected to such a method until I quit my job recently and I have seen the disastrous results first hand.
So how does MBO work? Let’s take a well known example. My ex worked in a call center. The only objective they had to reach was to be below a certain arbitrary average duration of customer calls. The actual quality of the support didn’t matter. So what happens when a CSR was above the average? He would make fake excuses to finish calls that would apparently take a long time: “sorry, can’t hear you”,”call back when you have the printer serial number”, “reboot and call back”… whatever the problem really was.
So my point is, I believe Apple rates reviewers on average review time. And since finding any defect is ground to reject an app, some reviewers will do whatever they need to find any rejection reason as quickly as possible. This would also explain why sometimes app that are quick to review are not rejected for the same ridiculous reasons as well done but complex ones are.
But then, you are going to tell me, why don’t they also blanket approve applications? I believe there must be a two stage review or an approval report written, that would explain why sometimes apps are approved only many days after reviewer usage. And I guess there is also a huge risk if an app is later found to be unsuitable, like the baby shaker thing.
Ding ding ding! I think we have a winner! Very interesting post, thanks! I think you may be right. My application has a search box. The reviewer was searching for "sex" right off the bat. I thought this was weird until your post.
Do you guys think sending an email to the reviewer asking for his supervisor's information would help or hinder? Would they even do it? Like any workplace everyone has a boss and if the customer asks to speak to a manager they need to provide it, does that apply here?
I sent my email response to Apple requesting a second opinion review on 6/1 and haven't heard back. Honestly, I don't expect to. I'm sure they read the first couple of lines and binned it.
They logged on twice, once friday, once saturday, and since then there's been no activity and still in review. 
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