Apple's Phil Schiller Says App Review Staff Is Your Friend - How Can App Approval Be Made Better?

Andy

Apple's Phil Schiller Says App Review Staff Is Your Friend - How Can App Approval Be Made Better?

Apple's app approval policies have been in the news quite often in recent times. While the developer community has always opposed Apple's strict and inconsistent approval policies, the noise has especially become louder after Facebook's leading iPhone app developer Joe Hewitt quit the team to make his views known against...

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muphinDOTnet

only would work if its a perfect world.

If there is no procedure to examine the apps, there can be games designed to entice users to install the app (sp?) but steal your details on your phone .. hidden code to do other nasty stuff.. i don't like the way apple is handling the apps but its a necessity to stop the floodgates from opening .. rating systems only work by look and feel not by examining the code, and a majority of users (99%) out there don't care about the code as long as they get the app they were looking for ... until there's a way to ensure the code is safe .. someone needs to examine it.

ezmac

Make loading and creating the provisions easier!

Chris Wade

I think there needs to be trials for all applications and they need to have a use at your own risk section.

Guest

I think that they should verify that at least all apps do not harm your phone or steal your data. The rest should be let through with disclaimers or ratings letting you know that there is some objectional content. With apple allowing more apps through, there needs to be a way to filter through your searches. I don't want to be bombarded with 1,000 twitter apps just because every developer thinks that theirs is better.
This is America, where an idiot can write a stupid app that everyone loves and makes a fortune on it.

I do believe that they need to refine their methods and policies and definitely make them more consistent. However, the system must exist. The worst thing possible would be to remove the approval process and have 7,000 crappy apps added a day.

mike

As a developer I really don't mind all the crap that Apple puts you though to get an app on the App Store. If it were that difficult there wouldn't be any apps, but there seem to be plenty. I don't even mind giving Apple their cut of 30% so that I don't have to deal with all of the commerce etc.
The submission process definitely need improvements though. I would like to see some of the following

1. If a person or business purchases a developer license they would get 3 free support incidents and a paid per incident line for development support. The unemployment rate in this country sucks why not train more people to support what we love and give a BUNCH of people jobs. I know this a chicken before the egg scenario but developers are screaming for more interaction and help. It is one of the things that Apple does best with it's genius bar.

2. All of the items that they have rejected applications for need to have explanations and solutions. These need to be posted in the Development areas so that other developers don't walk into the same traps. They have their guidelines with are good, but they are way to ambiguous. While not every line of code could be explained there are common things that developers are doing that are causing holdups. There are several sites now that list items that people have been rejected for but there is constant speculation on what the solution would be to fix the issue.

3. Max of 4 days for a binary to be reviewed and feedback of some sort sent back to the developer. These canned emails are absolutely useless. Currently even the canned responses are taking anywhere from 7 to 12 days for me and I know that it is taking longer for some developers.

4. No limbo - Apple has to give an answer yes or no within that four days.. or a good reason why it is taking longer to review.. Like we are reviewing your bandwidth consumption usage and it requires more testing. You may want to look at this ares of your code as it is raising some concerns. At least that way the developer can be doing something while they are evaluating or we have found that you are using references to .... or you app is crashing on ipod touch and we are ..... something!!!!

5. Currently when an application has been submitted the app goes into App Approval Neverland with the ocasional status update. It would be nice to see maybe some more status updates about different things. In Review/Code Review, In Review/Encryption - In Review/Compatibility or something. We are in an age of computers lets use them to update a bit more.

6. For corporate customers it would be nice to have a team assigned. I dont even mind paying for this.

7. For developers that submit more than others maybe a premium so that after a certain amt of changes cost. That way developers will test a bit more before submitting that update that changes a font.

I think most of it just boils down to more and faster communication.

muphinDOTnet

wow seems like mike has it figured out.
i agree a structured review process would speed everything up.
would not waste apples time and the developers, which in turn would create better apps.

Mike you should send Apple a registered letter explaining in detail how to get this process working, as more companies actually read and pay attention to snail mail more than they do e-mails.