I love Apple. But I’ve also been on this end of app rejections for mind boggling stupid reasons, wasting months of time, countless responses, calls, escalations...

This part of developer relations is a poor experience that needs to be worked out. Here’s some of my rejections. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1272968382329942017

Our app was once rejected for not including an in-app purchase option for something that could ONLY be purchased in a physical shop after an ID was checked.

Our app was rejected for including a link to a shop locator for the above rejection. Both these rejections burned up weeks and weeks of time and took me actually going to talk to someone at Apple in person.

We were rejected for mentioning Android as metadata in our app. But we didn’t mention it. It was tapping on a link and having Apple’s WebKit open a page to a website that mentioned Android in it. I spent weeks explaining the different between app metadata and the “internet”.

Our app was rejected for not visually “doing enough” to justify it being in the App Store. I said the point was it was streamlined to make it as simple as possible to perform its tasks and that Apple allowed a “Will You Marry Me Yes/No” app in the store and others that did less.

In all of these cases we wasted months of time & burned investors money because the review team either was overworked, lacked knowledge of app development, or lacked the ability to make a judgment call, but likely all of the above.

Apple deserves to make money for providing its platform for devs. But it’s time to re-evaluate the 30-15 model & start looking at alternatives that serve the community better. For example, why are you letting Amazon provide the dev services you should be proving us for a fee?

For in-app payments, a smaller percentage combined with a slew of services that make the fee worth paying...so people no longer call it a tax. I would also pay you to migrate many of my Amazon cloud services to your environment, but you don’t have one.

Slow initial app approvals in exchange for a more thought out approach to TestFlight and understanding an app and its purpose, instead of spitting out a list of Terms that are in violation. Not every app can fit perfectly inside your legal framework. Give us some flexibility.

Additionally, improved training and understanding of development to the aporoval teams. I shouldn’t have to explain the difference between app metadata and the internet. That’s almost insulting to me.

Change the tone from one of a faceless star chamber to one where it feels more like a partnership. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt I was actually talking to a bot and not an actual person. Maddening.

The developer experience should be no different than if I walked into an Apple Store with a problem with my iPhone. Developers are actually your most important customers. App approval should be less like a gladiator up/down vote and more like a moderation experience.

Like Apple Genius Bar folks for Store customers, our app developer experience should be less impersonal and more like a “counselor” to guide you through the experience. A simple change in the UI/UX of the submission/approval process would work wonders in reducing the frustration.

The way the approval and rejection process is currently designed actually increases and escalates the frustration and anger of developers, which must then have the same effect on the approvals team, needlessly subjecting them to angry devs.

I’ve actually written a laundry list of improvements and ways to improve this entire model, from revenue to the quality of the processes in place. Hey Apple...call me...I’ll take a leave of absence from my gig to help fix this.