Difficulties in Publishing Applications in the App Store
It is difficult to deny the fact that today, almost the entire population of developed and developing countries are dependent on mobile phones and various gadgets. Modern mobile applications allow users to accomplish a wide range of emerging challenges - image processing, weather forecasts, music recognition, and access to social networks. However, few people have thought about how the millions of applications get into the so-called "app stores" (Apple App Store, Google Play), from where users can download them to their mobile phones. This process is known as the publishing of applications. This article will shed light on some interesting features of Apple's policy for publishing applications in the App Store.
We first became familiar with the App Store quite some time ago, but since that time, Apple's policy in the sphere of publishing applications has been constantly undergoing changes.
It all started when our developers, creating their first applications for the Apple platform, faced the mandatory acceptance procedure for the products they planned to publish in the App Store. This procedure includes several successive steps of verifying the application according to the criteria developed by Apple. In contrast to Google Play, where the published products immediately get into the store without any verification, the App Store, in addition to automatic review, has special Apple teams to verify every application and every update. These criteria are described in full on the website for the developers of iOS applications. Moreover, Apple does not provide any guarantees as to the time period within which the application will be checked or when the final decision about its further destiny will be given - be it either a green or red light. Every year the number of criteria Apple uses to check new applications is growing and the criteria themselves are becoming more stringent, because modern craftsmen find various ingenious ways to circumvent the existing rules. Quite honestly, it does not make sense to list all of the criteria in this article, because you can review them in detail on Apple’s website for developers. Nevertheless, I think it's worth telling a couple of interesting cases from our experience related to the publication of applications in the App Store. Maybe after reading this story, you will be able to draw your own conclusions and be ready for any such possible turns of events in the future.
Last spring, Iteratia Corporation was approached by a fairly large bank with a request to develop an application providing some basic reference information - a regular bank's annual report, to be implemented as an application for iPad, with a search option on the page, and the possibility of opening the necessary topics, etc. Not seeing any possible difficulties in accomplishing the task, we signed the contract, started to work, and the application was written with ease. We were ready to publish it in the App Store in just a few days. However, after some time, we received a rejection notification from Apple with clarification stating that according to a certain point in their rules, our product could not be considered a fully functional application, and as it belonged to the section of ordinary e-books, it should have gone to the dedicated store. There was no limit to our surprise because our bank already had a similar application in the App Store that only contained the report for the previous year. According to Apple’s policy, links to existing published applications (analogs) cannot serve as arguments in an appeal against the refusal to publish an application. In other words, our application was rejected, even though Apple had accepted an analogous application for publication one year earlier.
Faced with this problem and after consultation with the client, our developers decided to extend the functionality of the application to avoid another rejection by Apple. After a few meetings and a brainstorming session, a set of additional functions were chosen for implementation in this application, including a map of the bank’s branches, videos, a news block, and so on. As a result, the project was approved and published in the App Store. It was concluded that, at the stage of creating the technical specification, the developers should immediately explain the possibilities of the platform to the customer in order to avoid possible future problems at the review stage.
Another interesting case happened to us last winter. Apple refused to publish not an application itself, but a small update for an app. During that period, our client was actively conducting an advertising campaign of his product, and as one of the advertising tools, he wanted to utilize the mobile application previously created for him. In the new update, we added the ad unit containing the terms of the campaign and the possible prizes for participating. The essence of the advertising was as follows “buy 3 units of product X and get a 10% discount”. It turned out that Apple prohibits the inclusion of information about any prizes in campaigns in applications because the user may perceive it to be information provided by Apple itself. In this way, the App Store protects Apple against possible claims by the users.
As you can see, there can be only one of two possible outcomes after checking your application - either publication or denial. However, do not forget that Apple's verification process is carried out by living humans trying to be loyal to the developers. There are cases when the team of testers at a certain stage of testing may need additional information (such as test accounts for the social network, for example), and of course they will ask you for that information before making a final decision on the application.
Finally, I would like to give a word of advice about publishing applications in the App Store when you have to meet a fixed date for launching a project in a limited amount of time. Apple has a special form for expedited consideration of the application (all verification steps are the same as in the standard test procedure), but the answer in this case is usually given in just 1 or 2 days. You have to realize, however, that a really good reason is needed to go for it, and you will likely be given only one chance to use such a "convenient and fast" way to test applications - this is in order to avoid users abusing the system for expedited reviews. In other words, you will need more than just a good reason to be given a second attempt.
The number of such cases is constantly increasing - new projects, changes in publishing policies, applications tested by different Apple teams - that is why any developer of iOS applications has stories and experiences of his own, which may be truly unique. We hope that our experience will help you in the future to circumvent possible obstacles.
Source: Iteratia.com
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