Dealing with Apple App Store Rejection
25:49 Share

What's up everybody, welcome to another episode of the Compile Strip Podcast. I'm your host Peter Whittem and here's the other host. How you doing Jack? I'm doing just fine. Better than you are it seems. Yes, and that is a very slick segue into Peter's got a problem this week.

Professional podcasting. Yes. Yeah, we've been practicing. You know, we spent hours coming up with that line. So we're going to get into this here, but I think that this is going to be very beneficial for many folks. Now, we have done episodes before on the App Store and app reviews and everything else.

But this one is personal. I had a project. I had a crazy notion at the beginning of June on a live stream. Oh, let's make a game in one month and ship it at the end of June. I don't know what I was thinking. But anyway, made the game already. And I was like, dang, look at me. I'm all that.

and then I submitted it to AppReview and things didn't go well. So, I'm only at the beta 1 stage but it was good enough that hey, it's almost complete, I wanted to give it to folks and I submitted it and it got rejected. And we want to talk about the rejection. Now,

What I mean by that is I'm not angry about it or self-entitled or anything like that. We want to just sort of go through the process of what you do when you get that rejection and some ways to sort of approach it, right? So we're going to go with this where I'm the patient and Jeff's the doctor. He gets all the money and I get all the therapy. That's how this is going to work. You're the patient and I'm the patient one. Yeah, there you go.

the rich patient one probably driving a BMW. Alright so let's get into this. I created a very simple game and the idea being yeah I had to do it in a month so take a simple idea make

make the game and ship it. To sort of break it down, if you've not seen the live streams, but you should, right? Go to compileswift.com forward slash live stream. And the idea is that there is this saw that slowly comes towards a beam of wood. You get to move the beam of wood around to cut it in the exact right spot where it's indicated. Yeah, you very clever. You score some points. And if you don't, you don't score some points. End of 60 seconds. How many points do you have, right?

It's in 3D, made it in Unity. It all looks nice. It's got sounds and everything else.

And that is it. It's a very simple concept. Sent it off to Apple so that I could get a test flight for folks to try it out. Submitted it for a public test flight. And that's where it got rejected. Now, let's start talking about what do you do when that happens, right? You don't burst into tears. Number one, don't do that, right? Go for it, Jeff. What do I do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. First step, as the great Douglas Adams always said, don't panic.

Just, you know, rejections happen to everybody. They happen all the time. And it doesn't mean your app is forever lost. It doesn't mean that you're kicked out of the app store. It means, you know, you got some work to do.

And really, you need to come at it with a calm demeanor. Because if you go into it scared or angry or sad or anything like that, you're just going to make life harder on yourself. So really, yeah, step number one is don't panic. Calm down. You're going to get through this. And that's really where we want to start. Yeah. Now, I want to start off by saying...

I was calm. I was fine with it. This was a project that is a small project. So yeah, I was like, okay, this was a fun project. And my goal was to make it in a month. And I did that. And so, you know, it wasn't like hurt or upset. I was gutted, of course, because, you know, you live with something, you want to give it to people. But it wasn't like, oh my gosh, you know, this was going to make me a millionaire or anything like that. It wasn't going to cost anything at all.

So it really didn't hurt too much, but it did become a question of, well, let's see if we can turn this around. Mostly it was Jeff starting off by telling me, saying, tell me what they did. Tell me what's wrong. Show me the email. What did you do? Yeah.

It's kind of like that parent thing. Yeah, it's like the parent thing when you're a kid. Did you break somebody's window? What have you done? Right? You know. So we've sort of broken this down into different levels. And like I say, Jeff's going to be the doctor and help me with this one. Right?

Yeah, we're going to go through a couple different levels of rejection depending on how much work you actually have to do to get through it. The first level of rejection, this is going to be probably the most common rejection that you'll see, especially if your app is already in the store, is Apple goes, hey, you've got one particular thing. You missed it.

you know, just like something in the app review guidelines that you, you didn't quite hit. Um, and we're going to tell you exactly what you need to do to fix it. And, and you can just go fix it. Uh, common one that I've run into all the times is like, Oh, yeah,

you're supporting subscriptions in your app and you forgot to put a link to your terms of service in your app description you know something silly like that apple says you have to do it you got to do it uh and if you don't do it they're going to reject you but they're going to say hey dingus you forgot this particular thing and that's really easy to get over you just you just got to go do it it's frustrating that yeah you know you thought your app was going to be ready you thought it was going to be able to go out and you can't but you just you just do it you just got to do the work at that point um the

This is a good rejection to have. If you've got to get rejected, the one with concrete fixable problems is the best level to start with. Yeah. One that I see more often than not is people don't think about, oh, you know, hey, you didn't add a privacy policy. And like you say, super easy to fix. Right. Yeah.

But that is one that I've heard a lot of people like, oh, yeah, privacy policy. It's like, yeah, they put that there for a reason. Level two, just moving a little step above that is, you know, some slightly bigger concerns. You know, Apple wants a change to how one of your features works.

A common one here would be, oh, your paywall's just not quite explaining what you're doing. Or you've got a very basic app and they're like, well, you know, this is kind of just minimal functionality. You really need to build a little bit more into this app to actually make it worth being on the App Store.

Something that's going to require some amount of work. It's not just a go and, you know, quickly paste in a thing like you have with the level run rejections, but it's something where, you know, vaguely the amount of scope that you're getting into. Now, alternatively, a lot of these kinds of cases are something that Apple's gotten wrong and it,

In that case, you've got a couple tools that Apple gives you to work with to help out with this.

These are in your actual submission. You've got the app store review notes. And alongside those, you've got attachments that you can make there. And so something that can happen is you can have a problem that occasionally Apple will reject you for. And you go, no, no, no, that's not really how this works. Or you've got some explanation to do for it. You should put those in your app review notes.

Because then Apple can see that in the future and go, oh, you know, this is maybe a problem that they've seen before. This is maybe an issue that they've had in the past. But we can have this explanation for you. One example that I've had with this in the past was I used to have an app called Scrawl Notes. And it felt like if you just launched it, that it was a very basic, very simple app. And I would often get rejected for, you know, minimal functionality type things.

And what I ended up having to do was put information in the review notes like, no, this app is not just a text box. There is a companion widget. And here's the explanation of how to get the widget in there. And here's how this works, et cetera, et cetera. And so being able to have those kind of common rejections in your app store review notes is

Obviously, that doesn't help you the first time you get rejected, but coming through in the future can prevent these kinds of rejections again. And actually, to add in here, when I saw the rejection email come in and I hadn't read it, I was out and about and stuff, and I just saw the subject line, I actually thought at first maybe this was the problem was, I mean, this by design was a very short, sweet, simple game, and they felt...

hey, it's just not enough, right? This was my initial thought. Turned out I was wrong, but I thought this was the one that got me. But anyway, you have tools to deal with it.

There's definitely a path forward. It's probably not a super fun path that you're going to want to walk, but you have ways out of it. Hey, folks, if you like what you're hearing in this podcast and you want to help this podcast to continue going forward and having great guests and great conversations, I invite you to become a Patreon supporter. You can go to patreon.com forward slash compile swift, where you will get ad free versions of the podcast along with other content.

All right here it is the one thing that I cannot do without every day and that is my coffee. Anyone that knows me or anyone that's listened to it in my podcasts or anything else knows that I absolutely cannot operate without my coffee and I love good coffee. So here's the deal I'm going to give you one free bag of coffee by going to peterwidom.com forward slash coffee and

There is a wonderful company out there that follows the fair trade practices, helps out a lot of independent roasters of all sizes, and the operation is simple. What you do is, you're going to go to peterwhitam.com forward slash coffee, you sign up there, you get a free bag of coffee sent to you, yes, in return. They say thank you to me by giving me some coffee, but that's not the reason I'm doing this. The reason I'm doing this is because I have found...

So many good coffees that I just would never have come across, heard about, or experienced without this service. Trade Coffee is just fantastic. You know, there are plenty of places out there. We all know them that supply coffee, good coffee.

You can go to the store, get the coffee, but there is nothing better than discovering new independent roasters and supporting them, discovering new flavors of coffee, new grinds for you can set it up. It's very smart. You tell it the kind of coffee you like. And over time, it gets better and better as it trains in on your selections and your choices and gives you exactly the coffee you're looking for and recommending new ones that will be very similar to

Every time I get a new packet of coffee, I go through and afterwards I try the coffee. I go through the service and I say, look, I loved this coffee. I thought this coffee was okay. Or I say, look, this was really not for me. And every time I do that, it makes the service a little more accurate on the next selection for me.

So again, just go to peterwhitam.com forward slash coffee. Get your free bag of coffee today. If you're a coffee lover, you're going to really appreciate this service. I have been using it for years at this point and thoroughly recommend it. Moving up to level three, this is where things get a little bit hairy. Level three is these major issues.

In this case, Apple wants a major change to your business model. They're like, you can't charge money this way. You can't. Or they have...

Major concerns with your app's functionality. They're like, you know, you've got some kind of thing that's pulling down code or whatnot. You're doing something that they clearly are just like not okay with. Something along those lines where you've built your app around a certain thing and Apple's saying, nah, this isn't allowed. This is where things, yeah, like I said earlier, this is the level where things get a little bit more problematic, right?

And I think you've got really four options that you have at this point. None of them are very good options, but we're going to, we're going to walk through them. All right. Option a is yeah. Suck it up and still go back and rework it. Do you have to change your business model? That's probably not ideal, but if that's the only chance that you have to get into the app store, maybe you do it. Like it, sometimes it is the path of least resistance and,

and you're just going to have to deal with it. It's definitely not ideal. You don't want to have to do this kind of reworking, but it's an option. Option B, put up a fight.

Go fight with Apple, disagree with them, talk to them, say, hey, I actually believe my app is in the rules. I believe my app is doing something that is allowed. Let me explain to you why this is actually doing this. And in cases, this has worked. I have seen this work in the past where people have said, hey, you're saying that I'm rejected for this reason. I'm actually falling under this particular loophole and therefore my app should be allowed.

This is not going to be a quick fight. This will often take days or weeks to get through, but it is winnable sometimes. And so it's an option that you have to deal with Apple that way. Yeah, because, I mean, it can just be a simple misunderstanding, right? Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Probably not a simple misunderstanding, but it can be a misunderstanding. It can be that the rules just, they are ambiguous or something like that. And you really need to spend time working through it. And just want to point out here, you know, we're saying fight with Apple and, but at all times be polite, right? If you come off wrong, right?

and that's open to interpretation, then you're only hurting your chances, right? So at all times, be professional, be polite, and work with them, right? When we say fight, we don't mean take the stance of they're wrong. We mean fight for why you're right. If you do want to take the stance that they're wrong, if you do want to take the stance that they're wrong, we've got our next option here, which is Apple says this doesn't work.

history has said otherwise and that's go run to the press go run to your social media go claim up and down how persecuted you are and why your app deserves to be in the app store and and why you're you're being you know silenced by apple uh this is not going to make any friends 100 this is not going to make any friends

Again, history has shown that it does occasionally work. If you throw enough of a fit, Apple will shut up and listen to you. You're never going to get featured ever again if this is the case. But if you really feel like you are in the right, if you feel like you are doing the right thing and Apple is just being onerous for some reason or another, and you feel like you can make enough noise, you know,

Getting your voice out there is never easy anyway. But if you have that capability, it is another option to go out there and say, like, no, I think I'm right and I'm going to fight this in the court of public opinion.

Yeah. And I think, you know, humorous side, but also somewhat true, like you say, is, you know, if you're going to go this path and you win, really celebrate the win because it may be the only app you ever get in the store. Maybe your last, yeah. Yeah. And last, option D, always an option. This is one of my favorite options in life. Give up.

Just, you know, sometimes the app really isn't worth it. And this is a very painful outcome to have put a lot of work into an app and realize that, yeah, it really just is not worth the fight. I did an app a couple years ago for a local business of mine. And I said, like, hey, you know, I'm putting this together. And Apple rejected me for minimal functionality. And

and said basically like, you've got to add all these extra features to your app, which makes it more than I think the bigger concerns, the level two level. This was more like, you need more than half of the app to be added to this app. And I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. And so, yeah, I, that was what happened. Like that app never shipped because I just said, you know what? It's not worth fighting for this app. Yeah. I think it's unlikely, you know, obviously we are talking primarily to kind of Indies here, but yeah,

It's unlikely whatever you have is so groundbreaking that it's worth ruining everything else over. In this case, I was very much like, yeah, I can sit here and I can bicker about this one particular app, but I've got four other apps that I am working on that I'm maintaining that I need to keep working on. It's not worth it. I'm just going to deal with it and say this app is never going to ship. I'm sorry. It would have been a cool app to have out there, but I don't want to get in a fight with Apple over it.

Yep. Yeah, I agree. You know, I think just channel your energy somewhere else and do something cool with it, right? And that brings us to level four. And this is the level that Peter has found himself in. This is the...

Apple says... This is the level where Apple just says, talk to the hand. They show up, they come back, they reject you, and they say, you violated rule X.Y. Done. And they just tell you nothing else. They give you no other information. They go, you are out of your mind.

Out of here for some untold reason that we have decided that we hate you today. And this is really difficult to deal with. I'm not going to lie. And Peter can obviously clarify right now that, you know, you're probably not feeling great about your chances. Yeah. That's fair to say. Right.

Uh, but as, as always, you do have options here and how successful these options are depend on how successful these options are depend on how belligerent Apple wants to be at any given point, but it's at least worth trying. Step one, respond and ask for clarification. Oftentimes they will reject you for something simple and you just need to go, I don't, I

what it is you actually want me to fix. Because if they've told you nothing, then it makes it difficult for you to be able to do anything. So step two, if you didn't get much of a response from Apple on the actual reply, or if you need more information there, it is actually possible to get app review on the phone. And there are public ways of doing that that we will link to in the show notes.

But that is a very good way to kind of have a conversation with them. Rather than going just back and forth in the app review rejection area,

get on a phone with AppReview and say, hey, I need help. I really need you to help explain what it is that you need me to fix. Because I think that's something people don't often think about, right? I mean, it's not something to be fair every day. You're like, oh, wait, I can get Apple, whoever, on the telephone. It doesn't immediately come to mind, right? In a world where

We chat to AI bots and send emails and so on. It's like, hey, you know what? Some people still use the telephone and that's cool. Apple has a pretty well-deserved reputation for being a little opaque, but app review is actually...

somewhat less opaque where you can actually get a person on the phone and try to get help from them that way. And then step three, if you have talked to Apple via the messaging, if you've talked to Apple again via the phone and neither of those is really getting you unblocked, there is the appeal process where you say, you know what? I think you're wrong. Uh, or I think, you know, you're, you're blocking me in a way that doesn't make any sense. Uh,

And you submit an appeal and it goes to a app review board and they will take time to deliberate on your particular case. But after a few days, they will return you a kind of final judgment, um,

The problem with this approach is that final judgment can be you're still screwed. And so it is very much the poll in case of emergency approach. And so you probably don't want to do it unless you really are in trouble and really want to get this app through. But it is a kind of your final step with dealing with Apple when they are really wanting you gone. Yeah.

And I do want to add here, so, you know, I have dealt with Apple, obviously, and I have dealt with Google. And I will say, unscientifically, my experiences with Apple have been a lot more rewarding than they were with Google. It was exceptionally hard to get results.

any kind of meaningful information at all from Google. And so I actually swing my vote in favor of, hey, you know what? Like you said, the app review folks and that, you know, they want you to succeed, right? It's in their best interest as well. But definitely for me, Google has been the harder one to get any response from.

That's useful. All right, Peter. So we've discussed all of the various approaches to how to get yourself on rejected. What are you going to get myself on rejected? I'm just going to, I'm not perfect. All right, wrap it up. Yeah. I'm just going to reply to the, to the review and say, listen to this podcast episode. It totally explains why I should, should be in the store. No, just kidding. So, um, well, here's what I'm going to do, because as you said, I'm sort of in that level of,

four zone where the email i got back gave me it just it just says no yeah yeah right it told me which section it felt i had fallen foul of and that was it no um explanation or you know um

That was basically it. And the one that it did didn't make any sense because there was no context to the explanation. So I'm actually going to reply back and just ask them, hey, can you please explain? No, I'm not even going to put it that way. Can you please help me understand how I have fallen foul of this particular rule so that I can understand

improve the situation and see what they say because there's really at this point you know it's that thing of i can't argue anything because i don't know what i'm supposed to be arguing for do you know what i mean and so i think i have to start by saying please can you elaborate a little more and then if they come back with something that makes perfect sense you know

We take it from there, right? It's either like, okay, you know what, Apple, you're right, and I can fix this, and I can go do whatever to fix it. Or maybe what they're saying is, yeah, you know, it's not worth it, you're right. And I think that we've got to give that a chance, right? Because when they, you know, it really is that case of when someone tells you nothing, what do you do with that, right? It's like going to court, and before anybody says anything, the judge says, you're guilty, right?

And you're like, wait, what now? What am I guilty of? Can we talk about this? Can you explain it? And that's kind of where I feel at the moment. So I'm going to try that. Okay, so while I'm struggling with all of this and all of my life problems, Jeff, where can they find you?

You can find me and everything that I do at CocoType.com. And I'm going to stop promising that I have a redesign for that website soon because I still haven't shipped it. It's not got worse. Yep. And you can find me at PeterWhitam.com. And of course, you can find this podcast at CompileSwift.com. Folks, if you want to reach out to us, you know, there is a contact form on CompileSwift.com. Or we pretty much have that address wrapped up on nearly all the social networks.

I've got CompileSwift, so just reach out. We would love to hear from your experience. Hang on. And if you want to go the extra step, hey, you know what? We've got a Discord. Put a link in the show notes. Come and join us on the Discord where we talk about this and lots of other development-related stuff. And we're all there to try and help each other through it, including problems like this, which can be a real pain. That's it, folks. Speak to you next time. See you.