Apple is making a valiant effort to keep the number of “spammy” apps off of the App Store. Some may say that it’s too little too late, but I agree that any effort to include higher-quality content in the App Store is good for users and developers alike. However, a quick Google search for “app rejection design spam 4.3” or something along those lines will tell you that the reviewers are going too far (if we are to take the developers at face value).
In my case, I’ve created a new app entirely from scratch (minus two common frameworks, Realm for persistence and Hero for some minor transition animation). I’ve used no app templates, and used no other app as reference for design or coding inspiration, yet I’m being told that my app is “spam” and it’s being rejected. Looking at the top 100 paid productivity apps on the App Store at the time of this writing, I see no other app that has similar functionality to mine yet I do see dozens upon dozens of to-do list apps, notepads, and calendars. But apparently I’m the spammer and I’m duplicating another app’s design and/or functionality.
The worst part is that despite repeated appeals to simply ask for MORE information, the review team only responds by copying and pasting the 4.3 spam text from the App Store rejection playbook. Please, just point me to ONE app that I supposedly spammed, any app, let me review it and make changes to my design or functionality to differentiate my app from theirs. Nothing.
For my part I have reviewed some of the competitive apps in the same space or at least adjacent to my app’s space, and across the board the designs of the apps are very different from one another and from my own. As far as functionality… I mean come on, yes, my app has similar functionality but isn’t that the point? I’m implementing something that has been done before, yes, but I think I’m offering something better than the others. And FWIW what I’m doing hasn’t been done before nearly as much as other apps represented in the top 100 (paid or free) in the category I’m trying to enter.
Hitting a brick wall with the review team, I’ve pulled the binary so that I can include some more on-boarding information. I’m partially convinced they really don’t fully understand my app’s functionality, and if that’s the case that is 100% on me. So new on-boarding screens are going to be included in the new binary, and I’m tweaking the categories and changed the name on the next submission attempt. Maybe my prior name primed them to think my app was too generic or that its core functionality was something that it’s not, and maybe the Utilities space is a better fit than the Productivity space in my case.
To be clear, none of these things that I’m changing were cited as reasons for rejection, but I’m hoping there is some unconscious bias going on that I can work in my favor. I’ve read of numerous instances of rejections for exactly this issue, and if the developers in those cases are to be believed (and given my current experience, I at least tend to believe them), the app review team seems to just be rejecting otherwise worthwhile apps that they just kinda-sorta feel like they don’t want to approve and using 4.3 as the excuse.
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