Accessible Hangman Bug Fix Rejected From App Store
Oriol Gomez (via Becky Hansmeyer, Daniel Hall, Hacker News):
As some of you may know, I am a totally blind iOS game developer. Among other games I have made accessible Hangman, Choose your Face, etc.
Well, about 3 days ago I found out a bug which prevented iOS 15 users from running my game accessible hangman. I submitted an update to the app store fixing this problem. To my surprise, I got an email saying that my app is similar to other apps on the app store and that it is considered spam. Literally.
Now, I do understand that every app needs to go through review every time it is updated, of course. But this is verion 2.5 of the app, this is in no way the first or second version. So yes, Apple seems to find a new issue when someone just finds a little light in their brain clicking into place, the first version had no such issue. But after 4 or 5 versions, oooooh wait, your app does not comply with blah blah blah. So, yes, I think this is unfair. Anyway, I have some news regarding this whole hing, the update was pushed through and approved finally so I’m a bit less worried, they still say I should talk to them on the phone so they’re going to schedule a call with me.
Previously:
- Rejected for Mentioning iOS 15 Compatibility
- FlickType Discontinued
- Allowing Bug Fixes and Challenging the Guidelines
3 Comments RSS · Twitter
@Sören In this case, the issue wasn’t that Apple thought there might be a problem with the app. It’s that there were other similar apps in that same category—which may not have actually existed when the app was first approved.
@ Michael: ah, I see. In that case, my comment applies better to cases where a 2.4.7 was suddenly rejected when a 2.4.6 wasn't. Which is not only frustrating for the developer and the users, but has got to be a silly bureaucratic expensive for Apple as well.
> But this is verion 2.5 of the app, this is in no way the first or second version. So yes, Apple seems to find a new issue when someone just finds a little light in their brain clicking into place, the first version had no such issue. But after 4 or 5 versions, oooooh wait, your app does not comply with blah blah blah.
It's bizarre, isn't it?
Apple is probably wary of developers hiding significant changes between an ostensibly minor updates (like a certain company whose name starts with an 'E'), but since they've been doing static analysis for a while, wouldn't they be able to detect "this does look like a very minor update; let's do less thorough checks"? Wouldn't that save Apple money, too?