{"id":36746,"date":"2022-08-11T15:57:16","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T19:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=36746"},"modified":"2022-08-29T14:12:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T18:12:28","slug":"telegram-stuck-in-app-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/11\/telegram-stuck-in-app-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Telegram Stuck in App Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2022\/08\/11\/telegram-app-store-update-being-delayed\/\">Sami Fathi<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2022\/08\/11\/telegram-app-store-update-being-delayed\/\"><p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/durov\/190\">his Telegram channel<\/a>, Durov says that an update to Telegram for iOS that will change how people communicate has been stuck in Apple&rsquo;s  App Store  review process for over two weeks, with no communication from the company over why or when it will be approved. Durov points out that if an app as popular as Telegram receives this treatment, one can &ldquo;imagine the difficulties experienced by smaller app developers.&rdquo;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/11\/kaleidoscope-3-6\/\">Kaleidoscope 3.6<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/05\/apple-sitting-on-applications-and-requests\/\">Apple Sitting on Applications and Requests<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/09\/apple-forces-telegram-to-close-channels-run-by-belarus-protestors\/\">Apple Forces Telegram to Close Channels Run by Belarus Protestors<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/31\/apple-hasnt-blocked-telegram-app-but-wont-allow-updates\/\">Apple Hasn&rsquo;t Blocked Telegram App, But Won&rsquo;t Allow Updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/no-one-minding-the-store\/\">No One Minding the Store<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"telegram-stuck-in-app-review-update-2022-08-29\">Update (2022-08-29): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/8\/12\/23303446\/telegram-update-apple-emoji-telemoji\">Jay Peters<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=32457136\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/8\/12\/23303446\/telegram-update-apple-emoji-telemoji\">\n<p>&ldquo;After extensive media coverage of my previous post, Apple got back to us with a demand to water down our pending Telegram update by removing Telemoji &mdash; higher quality vector-animated versions of the standard emoji,&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/durov\/191\">Durov wrote on his Telegram channel<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I think the Telemoji look like a lot of fun. I love how they add some life to static emoji faces I&rsquo;ve gotten quite familiar with. But I&rsquo;m guessing Apple took issue with another company modifying its designs in this way, which might be why it asked Telegram to remove Telemoji from the update.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>There is, in fact, a specific rule 5.2.5 against <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/app-store\/review\/guidelines\/#legal\">using Apple&rsquo;s emoji designs<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/app-store\/review\/guidelines\/#legal\">\n<p>Apps and extensions, including third-party keyboards and Sticker packs, may not include Apple emoji.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>It&rsquo;s not entirely clear what this means. Apple seems to have no issue with apps like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.caseyliss.com\/2022\/3\/3\/maskeraid\">MaskerAid<\/a> using Apple emoji as design elements. I would have thought surely that embedding modified versions of Apple&rsquo;s copyrighted images would be over the line, but I guess it&rsquo;s not that far over because it took Apple several weeks to decide.<\/p>\n\n<p>Durov had said that Apple held the app in limbo without any communication, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/22\/08\/12\/telegram-app-update-was-held-up-over-ios-inspired-animated-emoji\">AppleInsider writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/22\/08\/12\/telegram-app-update-was-held-up-over-ios-inspired-animated-emoji\"><p>Apple says it provided clear communications with Telegram throughout the review process, including that it would take longer for reviewing the app. In the case of Telegram&rsquo;s rejection, Apple provided a written notice and a phone call, with the latter checking Telegram knew the reason for the rejection, and how to get back into compliance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>I initially read this as contradicting Durov, but that&rsquo;s not necessarily true. Apple has a history of releasing carefully crafted statements that give the impression that the developer was lying. When you look closer, it often turns out that there is no contraction, just differing spins, or that <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/23\/apple-lies-about-epic-again\/\">Apple<\/a> was the one lying. It could be that Apple told him up front that reviewing would take longer but never gave any specifics until weeks later, after all the press, when it finally rejected the update and explained its reasoning.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rjonesy\/status\/1558280065376567297\">Ryan Jones<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DaveWoodX\/status\/1558289726196572160\">Dave Wood<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rjonesy\/status\/1558280065376567297\">\n<p>I made an app called Animoji (yup) in 2016 for the launch of &ldquo;iMessage App Store&rdquo; that got rejected ~10x for this exact reason.<\/p>\n<p>Basically they were too good. Even when we removed the &ldquo;gloss&rdquo; from the designs it was rejected repeatedly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sami Fathi: In his Telegram channel, Durov says that an update to Telegram for iOS that will change how people communicate has been stuck in Apple&rsquo;s App Store review process for over two weeks, with no communication from the company over why or when it will be approved. Durov points out that if an app [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2022-08-11T19:57:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"8357d9c6-e82d-43c5-a19a-cd4e3a9d6c93","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2022-08-29T18:12:31Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ag1fZxugtQ8Whms1OOp1skw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1846,91,130,167,257,31,2078,26,1677],"class_list":["post-36746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-app-review","tag-appstore","tag-rejection","tag-copyright","tag-emoji","tag-ios","tag-ios-15","tag-iosapp","tag-telegram"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36746"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36886,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36746\/revisions\/36886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}