{"id":43368,"date":"2024-05-22T14:02:09","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T18:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=43368"},"modified":"2025-05-07T10:48:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T14:48:51","slug":"mac-app-rejected-for-web-site-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/22\/mac-app-rejected-for-web-site-link\/","title":{"rendered":"Mac App Rejected for Web Site Link"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jmfd\/status\/1792964806766670030\">Jonathan Deutsch<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jmfd\/status\/1792964806766670030\"><p>My 1 bugfix update got rejected because I link to my website.<\/p><p>How are my fellow Mac app developers dealing with Apple&rsquo;s last gasp crackdown at their anti-steering provisions?<\/p><p>Are you making entirely separate versions of your website? Are you using query args to change behavior?<\/p><p>I should mention that this rejection is disingenuous; &ldquo;purchases(s) are immediately presented&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t quite accurate - there&rsquo;s a link to our store page yes, but even that has a link to the Mac App Store. Apple sent over screen shot &ldquo;evidence&rdquo; but conveniently cropped this out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Of course it was a bug fix update, and the link has probably been there forever.<\/p>\n<p>There&rsquo;s been a lot of news about iOS apps being rejected for links, and legal efforts challenging that, but I rarely hear about it happening for Mac apps.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike, say, Spotify, this developer is not <em>trying<\/em> to get around Apple&rsquo;s fees. Apple is going out of its way to be offended. It&rsquo;s not clear what the solution is if you want to comply with this ridiculous rule.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/15\/spotify-anti-steering-stonewalling\/\">Spotify Anti-Steering Stonewalling<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/20\/eu-to-fine-apple-over-anti-steering-rules\/\">EU to Fine Apple Over Anti-Steering Rules<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/18\/storekit-purchase-link-entitlement-for-united-states\/\">StoreKit Purchase Link Entitlement for United States<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/17\/storekit-external-purchase-entitlement-for-netherlands\/\">StoreKit External Purchase Entitlement for Netherlands<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/31\/allowing-bug-fixes-and-challenging-the-guidelines\/\">Allowing Bug Fixes and Challenging the Guidelines<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/28\/basecamp-app-rejected-for-including-help-link\/\">Basecamp App Rejected for Including Help Link<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"mac-app-rejected-for-web-site-link-update-2024-05-23\">Update (2024-05-23): <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@chockenberry\/112486219062214138\">Craig Hockenberry<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@chockenberry\/112486219062214138\">\n<p>Is this about a general link out to your site? If so, fight that.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@jmfd\/112488609670088822\">Jonathan Deutsch<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@jmfd\/112488609670088822\"><p>In my case, this is just opening a link to Hype&rsquo;s main product page in the browser.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>Even if I removed just this menu item, there&rsquo;s other links in the purchase flow (like learning about pro vs standard, going to the professional product page, etc.) that I suspect they&rsquo;d reject me for if they were upholding the same user-hostile logic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@jmfd\/112485819197131282\">Jonathan Deutsch<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@jmfd\/112485819197131282\"><p>I just submitted a solution where I add query args to the URL and if those exist my &lsquo;buy now&rsquo; button will use an app url scheme to open the in-app&rsquo;s payment page. We&rsquo;ll see what they say (I don&rsquo;t persist this across reloads and there&rsquo;s plenty of other ways to get to our store).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"mac-app-rejected-for-web-site-link-update-2024-05-31\">Update (2024-05-31): <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jmfd\/status\/1795962285162184862\">Jonathan Deutsch<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jmfd\/status\/1795962285162184862\"><p>I resubmitted with <tt>?build=MAS<\/tt> on the offending links. Those pages strip the query string and change my Buy Now button to reopen my app to its Unlock screen.<\/p><p>Apple approved the update.<\/p><p>Whether they approved because of the changes, or just because, we&rsquo;ll never know.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jonathan Deutsch: My 1 bugfix update got rejected because I link to my website.How are my fellow Mac app developers dealing with Apple&rsquo;s last gasp crackdown at their anti-steering provisions?Are you making entirely separate versions of your website? Are you using query args to change behavior?I should mention that this rejection is disingenuous; &ldquo;purchases(s) are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-05-22T18:02:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"967ee8ea-842b-42d2-9c37-f143af08ea13","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-05-31T13:55:43Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Aln7o6oQrQtKcN_FDrwjqEw","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":[130,2762,522,30,32,39,2385,362],"class_list":["post-43368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-rejection","tag-external-ios-payments","tag-inapppurchase","tag-mac","tag-macapp","tag-macappstore","tag-macos-14-sonoma","tag-tumulthype"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43368","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=43368"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43465,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43368\/revisions\/43465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}