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Apple highlighting top ten reasons apps get rejected on new developer page

Screen Shot 2014-08-31 at 12.25.21

As noticed by Apfelpage, Apple has published a new page to be more open about why it rejects apps. A chart at the bottom of the page shows the top ten reasons for app rejection in the last seven days; such as lack of information, crashes or bugs encountered, complicated user interfaces. Around 60% of rejections come from violation of just ten guidelines of the App Store rules. Some of these, like the existence of placeholder text in applications, seem rather trivial issues and it’s interesting that it arises so frequently as a cause of rejection.

The page goes into more detail on some of these points. In one instance, Apple highlights what it deems to be a ‘substandard user interface’, which apparently is responsible for 6% of all rejections. In the example, Apple advises use of a tableview to cleanly lay out information.

rejections-user-interface_2x

Although none of the advice is particularly revolutionary, it should help iOS app developers (especially those new to the ecosystem) sail through App Review more easily. The information also has a side-benefit; the less time Apple reviewers spend dealing with app issues, the faster the review process should become for all developers.

 

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Comments

  1. andreww500 - 10 years ago

    I will be submitting my first app to the app store tonight/tomorrow so I’ll definitely have a read through this. I’m fairly certain I am not infringing on any guidelines however.

    • dugbug - 10 years ago

      Hahaha…. You may think that. Day your app allows to access your support forum with a WebKit object. You may get stuck with nc17 rating requirement due to Internet access

      It’s very hard to predict a chalk line for the guidelines

      • Howie Isaacks - 10 years ago

        How nice of you to give out such discouraging advice!

      • Benjamin Mayo - 10 years ago

        Apple has relaxed that rule considerably. Most of the time app review will not have a problem with this.

  2. standardpull - 10 years ago

    The way I read this, a large percentage of apps are rejected because Apple thinks they are lousy.

    It’s like submitting a paper to your teacher – not only should the content be good, the grammar should be good too. The whole thing should be good, without plagiarism or confusing statements or plain-old errors.

  3. Bruno Fernandes (@Linkb8) - 10 years ago

    The key take-away here is that 42% of rejections in the past 7 days are for undisclosed reasons.

    The 10 guideline violations are just the obvious.

    • Benjamin Mayo - 10 years ago

      Not really undisclosed reasons. They are all listed in the App Review guidelines — Apple is just highlighting the ten main causes for rejection.

      • Bruno Fernandes (@Linkb8) - 10 years ago

        As the 42 % is undisclosed, we don’t know whether they’re in fact covered by guidelines or not. Opaque is opaque, a guess or hypothesis doesn’t make the contents any less unknown.

        There have been plenty of disallowed apps that have never been able to get a clear answer as to which guidelines were violated. I’d love to see a more thorough breakdown including the missing 42%, even if they have to group them into macro categories.

      • Xavier Poirot (@dalaen) - 10 years ago

        Someone is trying to find shit where there’s none. That’s sad.

  4. Eddy Van Hoeserlande - 10 years ago

    I think Apple should rethink the whole app approval process. Very strange that my iPhone app updates only take a couple of days and my iPad apps more then 2 weeks sometimes. I am also sure that they don’t test it out properly, especially when the different apps communicate to each other or to other hardware. I have a POS solution for the bar/restaurant business, for my last app, a KDS (Kitchen Display System), they asked a video, explaining how it works.

  5. Ic3y (@Ic3y23) - 10 years ago

    Funny how Guideline 2.9 does not allow “beta” apps. I guess Siri was an exception.

    • Bruno Fernandes (@Linkb8) - 10 years ago

      100% of all apps posted on the store are “beta” – they just don’t advertise that fact. Apple did, but they skirted that because Siri is not an app-store app, it’s part of the OS. Same with Maps. ;)

    • OneOkami (@OneOkami) - 10 years ago

      I don’t think Siri is an “app” so much as a service integrated into the OS.

  6. Lars Boelen - 10 years ago

    Good thing BStriker.com has an easy to implement solutions to organize software testing and get your Apps into the AppStore bug free.

  7. If an app has a bad UI, I thought consumers just gave it a bad review and moved on to another competing app, and the app developer doesn’t get any business.

  8. Sean Maxwell Hunter - 10 years ago

    This is also only data for 1 week of submissions…..

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.