WhisperPad Rejected From the Mac App Store
In April, Apple rejected an update to my Mac dictation app, WhisperPad, under Guideline 2.4.5. Their position was that I was using the accessibility API in a way that wasn’t an accessibility use. The app exists because I have a hand injury. Apple had approved earlier versions doing the same thing. This time they did not.
I had used Apple’s built-in dictation first, and the experience was a particular kind of frustrating. The transcription was close but rarely right, and every correction meant going back in with the keyboard, deleting, retyping. I was hurting my hands to fix the tool that was supposed to be saving them.
[…]
They responded that they would take a closer look. They told me not to reply in the thread, and said they would come back with a decision. That was April 21st.
Then it went quiet. By May 21st I had heard nothing[…]
Finally he heard back and was rejected again. He didn’t want to “sacrifice the reach of the App Store” so he made a “compromised version” for the store and is also selling the full version via Paddle.
Previously:
Update (2026-06-08): THOHT is another dictation app that did manage to get approved in the Mac App Store despite using the accessibility API.
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The Mac App Store tradition of Gimped Apps continues.
This is Apple's doing for basically never improving the App Sandbox (15 years in) and not providing more granular app permissions. The Accessibility permission is the only way some apps can be useful.
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Apple during WWDC week: "We can't wait to see what you do"
Apple every other week: App rejected, you're holding that permission wrong, we'll never update the Sandbox, we'll never do update sales, you can't link to your website, you can't refund your customers, we'll never fix bugs, "only Apple can do this".
@Plume Who knows what counts as an acceptable use. The cited guideline 2.4.5 doesn’t mention anything about accessibility or even that class of APIs that require user permission.
If there was ever a field which was ripe for AI to take all the jobs, it's App Store Reviewer.
Sorry for the (probably very few) actual people who work there, but it just doesn't make sense anymore.
At this point I literally trust an AI to read and interpret the rules correctly and quickly with a higher accuracy rate with zero human intervention.
It seems shockingly close to what exists now, but only with an inexplicably high error rate.
