I did a post last week wondering (out loud, so to speak) what rhyme or reason lay behind some recent App Store approval and rejection decisions. I also wondered whether some of these decisions were made either by a single person with a severe multiple personality disorder, or by a team of people who just absolutely are not on the same page.
Turns out, there ‘s some (at least anecdotal) evidence for the latter of those two. I heard from a very reliable source this week “ someone who has successful apps in the App Store and has been through the process “ in response to that post of mine from last week, and offering an answer
According to a ‘two-managerial layers up from the demo floor ‘ Apple AppStore representative I spoke with at WWDC, Apple has an entire team of application reviewers. Each one make their accept/reject decision based in part on their subjective opinion of what is appropriate. I asked if they have any sort of guidelines they use which they could provide to developers “ a list of dirty words, forbidden topics, etc. “ to which the representative replied that no, each reviewer makes their own decision about what gets approved. As a result, they couldn ‘t even guess at what would or wouldn ‘t get through the store.
Wow. If that ‘s accurate, that explains a lot. I ‘m sure the whole approvals process is a bit of a beast for Apple “ who are likely swamped by a greater volume of new apps coming through and wanting entry into the App Store than they or anyone else imagined. But it ‘s been a long while now that the App Store has been open (over 6 months) “ and you would think they ‘d have been able to ramp up by now.
Further, you would think there would be some sort of system in place to ensure consistent standards are applied during this process.
Of course, my contact ‘s information may just be wrong “ the person who provided it might not have been in a position to know the whole picture.
Oh well, I ‘m sure we ‘ll know the whole story soon, because Apple are so fond of being open and communicating regularly on subjects like these 🙂
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