[OT] A tale of App Store rejection

[Ralph DiMola]

Andre,

I got rejected because my detail screen had "data layout that is confusing".
I moved a couple of things around and it was approved. I assume that a
different tester looks at the app with every submission. The text did not
appear to be by the same person with each rejection. Also try adding in a
mergeMK map or other feature to give the app "more functionality". It took
me a couple of months to get approved. I was also rejected because of large
text. My app was tested with my target audience that is older. The large
text was requested. I explained this to Apple and they let that one go. Even
though their under-draws seemed a little tight, I found them not completely
unreasonable.

With that being said, this app was approved????????
https://itunes.apple.com/app/time2eat-with-john-patty/id403919346?mt=8

Good luck making it through the gauntlet!

Ralph DiMola
IT Director
Evergreen Information Services
rdimola at evergreeninfo.net

-----Original Message-----
From: use-livecode [mailto:use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf
Of Andre Garzia
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 7:50 AM
To: How to use LiveCode
Subject: [OT] A tale of App Store rejection

Hey Folks,

I am sharing here an experience with the iOS App Store.

I live in the beautiful city of Niterói in the state of Rio de Janeiro (as
seen in http://fon.nu/15DD13EL). Most of the citizens of my city work in the
city of Rio de Janeiro.

There are two ways to go from here to Rio. There is the ferry boat which
takes 20 minutes but has queues so long that you can wait an hour and a half
to board and there is the famous Rio - Niterói bridge that spans 13km and is
the only reasonable way to get to rio by car or bus. The problem is that the
bridge tends to be tangled in huge traffic jams that can last forever. So
people here face a dilemma, should I take a bus to Rio or a ferry boat.
Millions of people suffer that every day, twice a day, on the way into Rio
and on the way out of Rio.

So to help myself and others, I created this app that can be seen here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amoralabs.eponte

It displays in very large letters the current state of the traffic in the
bridge and if you want, you can see more details about how it got that way.

I built the little backend server thingy that figures out how the bridge is
and serve as the place that this thin stack connects to get information.

The application has 413 installations here, mostly because I don't make any
marketing.

So after releasing on Android, I decided to release it on iOS. I did all the
juggling and uploaded it to Apple and a week later they rejected it because
it was too simple, didn't provide enough features or lasting entertainment
and could be done as a website. Well, 3G connection here is not as
widespread as in New York so opening a web page on your cell phone every
time you want to check on the bridge is a waste of resources and time. My
app transmits a very small string so even on edge, it can figure out the
traffic easily. Also, this app is actually useful to the thousands of iphone
owners who commutes to Rio every day but Apple seems to prefer fart apps and
thus my app is not coming to iOS.

The lesson here is beware of your features because the app store is getting
very picky. Minimal applications that provide a single useful feature are no
longer good enough for them. Heck my app wasn't even ugly as some stuff
there. Anyway, I just wanted to share the experience for the benefit of
those that are building apps as small as mine.

This app was built in a day, including the server. It was a "dare" from a
friend who said: "how fast can you build something to check on the bridge
for Android?" and I said "fast."

At least people on Android can enjoy easy access to the traffic conditions.

Cheers
andre


--
http://www.andregarzia.com -- All We Do Is Code.
http://fon.nu -- minimalist url shortening service.
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