Inside Apple’s App Review Team
Kif Leswing (via John Voorhees, MacRumors):
Unlike content moderators at Silicon Valley companies such as Facebook or YouTube that rely on tens of thousands of contractors, Apple’s app reviewers work for Apple, people familiar with the process said. They’re paid hourly, have employee badges and get Apple benefits such as health care. Everyone starts out reviewing iPhone apps, and as reviewers become more senior, they are trained to evaluate apps with in-app purchases, subscriptions, Apple Watch and Apple TV.
[…]
App Review is organized under the marketing umbrella at Apple and always has been, even before Schiller took over the greater App Store marketing and product departments in late 2015. Although Schiller is involved in decision-making through the ERB, people who worked at the App Review office said that he rarely if ever visits the office where the review takes place.
According to people familiar with app review operations, day-to-day oversight mainly falls to a vice president at Apple, Ron Okamoto, and a director who joined Apple when it bought TestFlight in 2015, whom CNBC is not naming because of security reasons. Reviewers say they sometimes receive feedback from developers that can be threatening.
[…]
Reviewers have daily quotas of between 50 and 100 apps, and the number of apps any individual reviewer gets through in an hour is tracked by software called Watchtower, according to screenshots seen by CNBC. Reviewers are also judged on whether their decisions are later overturned and other quality-oriented stats.
Previously:
- App Store Competition
- Apps That Benefit and Threaten Apple
- Lessons Learned From the App Store
- Apple Shortening App Review Times
- App Store Director Developed “Animal Farts” and “iWiz”
3 Comments RSS · Twitter
" mainly falls to a vice president at Apple, Ron Okamoto, and a director who joined Apple when it bought TestFlight in 2015,"
Speaking of which, it's not clear what a "director" is. Presumably that isn't someone on the board of directors.
>Reviewers have daily quotas of between 50 and 100 apps
That's 5-10 minutes per app. This doesn't seem anywhere close to enough time.
Speaking of which, it’s not clear what a “director” is. Presumably that isn’t someone on the board of directors.
No, not that sense of director.
A director at Apple is a rank above manager. Their org chart goes CxO, Senior VP, VP, Director, Manager, Employee
