{"id":36852,"date":"2022-08-25T16:33:48","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T20:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=36852"},"modified":"2022-08-29T13:33:20","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T17:33:20","slug":"rejected-for-being-too-similar-to-a-web-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/25\/rejected-for-being-too-similar-to-a-web-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Rejected for Being Too Similar to a Web Site"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/notes.alinpanaitiu.com\/Dealing%20with%20App%20Store%20rejections\">Alin Panaitiu<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=32526047\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/notes.alinpanaitiu.com\/Dealing%20with%20App%20Store%20rejections\"><p>I tried to launch a simple, no-frills iOS app for party-goers and music festivals in &#x1F1F7;&#x1F1F4; Romania.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>The app is simple, fast, does what it says without any BS unneeded complexity. I thought subsequent features would be added based on what the users would ask for.<\/p><p>But sure, let&rsquo;s add some premature iOS native features for Apple[&#8230;]<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>Three more days of <em>Waiting for review<\/em> and, as before, another rejection with the same generic message.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Aren&rsquo;t most iOS apps simply native wrappers for Web sites?<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/29\/rcmd-vs-the-mac-app-store\/\">rcmd vs. the Mac App Store<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"rejected-for-being-too-similar-to-a-web-site-update-2022-08-29\">Update (2022-08-29): <a href=\"https:\/\/notes.alinpanaitiu.com\/Dealing%20with%20App%20Store%20rejections\">Alin Panaitiu<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/notes.alinpanaitiu.com\/Dealing%20with%20App%20Store%20rejections\">\n<p>About a week after this article started spinning around the internet[&#8230;] I got an email from App Store Connect that the app is now In Review. Without me submitting anything more than what was already there from the third try.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Good for him, but again it seems like there is no actual standard being set. It just depends on which reviewers you get, how they&rsquo;re feeling at the time, and whether the rejection goes viral.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mergesort\/status\/1563563690816782343\">Joe Fabisevich<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mergesort\/status\/1563563690816782343\">\n<p>This story about Apple&rsquo;s App Store &ldquo;simple apps&rdquo; policy really upsets me, the policy is completely arbitrary. Apple puts a lot of effort into getting people started with programming on iOS, but those same people will build &ldquo;simple apps&rdquo; and get rejected.<\/p>\n<p>I recently made an app that&rsquo;s just for me and my friends to play daily word games together. I was able to get them onto TestFlight but TestFlight isn&rsquo;t an adequate replacement. With no alternative distribution mechanism on iOS Apple is stifling creativity on their own platform.<\/p>\n<p>I say all of this not as an Apple hater but as a person who loves building for Apple&rsquo;s platforms and want to see them thrive. Heck, I plan to build my business atop iOS, but there&rsquo;s room for home cooked apps that surprise and delight just a few people.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/25\/personal-app-distribution\/\">Personal App Distribution<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alin Panaitiu (via Hacker News): I tried to launch a simple, no-frills iOS app for party-goers and music festivals in &#x1F1F7;&#x1F1F4; Romania.[&#8230;]The app is simple, fast, does what it says without any BS unneeded complexity. I thought subsequent features would be added based on what the users would ask for.But sure, let&rsquo;s add some premature [&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":"2022-08-25T20:33:51Z","apple_news_api_id":"974c65b2-18b7-4498-9b81-561bdf6d5efd","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2022-08-29T17:33:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Al0xlshi3RJibgVYb321e_Q","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":[91,130,31,2078,26],"class_list":["post-36852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-rejection","tag-ios","tag-ios-15","tag-iosapp"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36852","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=36852"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36882,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36852\/revisions\/36882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}