{"id":32442,"date":"2021-05-10T16:53:47","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T20:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=32442"},"modified":"2021-05-10T16:53:47","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T20:53:47","slug":"inside-app-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/10\/inside-app-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside App Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Troughton-Smith<\/a> has compiled some really interesting court exhibits from the Epic trial:<\/p>\n

\n

It seems like they create a trust score of your app based on a list of binary & metadata criteria, and then review what’s changed between versions<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Apple acquired SourceDNA<\/a> in 2016 to improve the automated binary analysis portion of App Review<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

As of 2015, there were 910<\/a> (!) different rules and other criteria that App Review used to approve\/deny apps. Only a fraction of those are actually communicated to developers in the App Review Guidelines<\/p>\n

Here are the top ten…<\/a><\/p>\n

App Review’s static analysis<\/a> includes checking for cookie-cutter apps, and the strings in your binary. Dynamic analysis runs your binary on a test farm and sees what you’re actually doing at runtime<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Roblox was rejected<\/a> for having minigames, and appealed to the App Review Board, saying that they would only add\/remove minigames with submissions and not remotely. Nobody on the board replied to the email, so Roblox was given the go-ahead<\/p>\n

Apple can end your business<\/a> and not bother to reply to your email asking why or how you can change. Tribe was thrown under the bus (UTB) by another app developer presumably wondering why they had been rejected, and as a result got thrown out after 3 years on the App Store<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Apple thinks developers<\/a> are liars or idiots for telling Bloomberg that they — correctly — were approved to be on the App Store. There was no rule at the time to justify removing them, so Apple did it anyway and invented one after the fact<\/p>\n

Apple didn’t want to come out publicly and say so, because it knew it had no actual rule to point to<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Turns out it’s developers<\/a>, via the developer agreement, that are responsible for ensuring the quality of apps on the App Store, not App Review at all. This is not surprising, but it could be an important distinction<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

‘The reason we lost Safari<\/a> on Windows is the same reason we’re losing Safari on Mac. We didn’t innovate or enhance Safari’<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Apple was utterly convinced<\/a> of its iPhone (P2) security in 2006 right before it was announced. iPhone made it a month and a half after release before being jailbroken to run third-party apps, bypassing every security measure there was.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Forstall wanted<\/a> to let Yahoo widgets on iOS.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Apple would ‘help’<\/a> CNBC write a story about how App Review is not a sweat shop despite its targets and overtime 🤨<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

See also: MacRumors<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n