https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/02/16/the-asymmetry-of-app-review/ Wednesday, February 16, 2022 [Tweets] [Favorites] The Asymmetry of App Review Steve: My experiences with Microsoft dev relations over the past decade have been nothing but positive and frictionless. My experiences with Apple have been nothing but combative and "computer says no" Via Florian Mueller: As for "computer says no," the problem is that Apple has to handle such huge quantities of app submissions every day that they have to automate the process to a high degree, and flexibly assign new requests to whoever is available to respond. That makes the experience impersonal most of the time. [...] It's also understandable that Apple says you must submit an actual app to them to get a decision. You can't just describe what you plan to develop and ask them whether they will approve. Here, again, the problem is not that they do it that way: the problem is that if you actually create that app and they reject it, it's one click for them (plus another to reject your appeal) and an enormous loss for you as a developer. Tim Carr: That feeling every time you hit the "Submit for Review" button knowing that a single reviewer at Apple might decide your entire app was never ok and torpedoes it off the App Store - it is unique, never had that horrid fear anywhere else. Tim Carr: I still remember being halfway thru a long drive to a week's vacation & having to stop in a random timmyho's summer-hot parking lot in order to plead with an App Reviewer who actually called me, for the life of my app. Highest-stakes call of my life ever David Barnard: I think the asymmetry of App Review is still lost on Apple. For indie developers our hopes and dreams (and sometimes our finances) hang in the balance, for the App Review team it's just another app rejection among tens of thousands. I know they think they get it, they just don't. Dave Wood: This is my biggest problem with Apple right now. Not the payment %. That Apple alone has the power to outright kill your business. No company should be able to decide if another company (or their business plan) should exist. That's a job for society & the governments we elect. Jason Snell: If developers don't have to bet it all on an App Store acceptance, it also means that they might be more willing to build daring and interesting apps that currently are too risky. Sure, being on the App Store would remain the goal of most developers (it's hard to imagine it wouldn't remain the most important real estate on iOS), but many more things are possible if the all-or-nothing gamble is gone. [...] The App Review process has gotten a reputation as a capricious and draconian system, but Apple has probably approved many apps that reviewers aren't thrilled about-either because they don't want the trouble or because they're concerned they'll be limiting the utility of iOS itself if they don't. A no-longer-exclusive App Store might tighten its rules and become more opinionated. It might even be more willing to reject shady developers, blast scam apps, and decline certain types of apps altogether. Apple acts as if today's App Store is just curating the platform, but it's not-it's judge, jury, and executioner. If you can fall back on telling developers to release their apps on their own, it's easier to be a curator. Perhaps, but there's still the problem of the bad incentives that come from getting 30% of each scam sale. Jeff Johnson: Playstation and Xbox have around 2500 games each. They are truly curated. App Store and Play Store have around 2-3 million apps each. They are not curated. Apple would have to drop at least 99% of apps to make App Store "curated". 20K titles is a reasonable number. Michael Love: This is an aspect of "consoles != phones" that Microsoft ought to push a lot more; if there were only 3000 iPhone apps and mine was one of them, I'd have no reason to complain about 30%. (at the final PalmSource conference, they were working on a curated store charging 70%) Francisco Tolmasky: It's really bizarre we cede major aspects of the @AppStore's narrative. As stated below, anyone who uses the store knows it isn't curated at all, but we don't push back on that. It's like an energy CEO saying "but if we get rid of coal plants, the air will stop being so clean!" Part of the problem is that it's been repeatedly shown that people aren't built to combat such bold lies, and at such high frequency. Just about every part of the @AppStore narrative from Apple is blatantly false. So you get decision paralysis as to which part to argue against. Ross Boucher: It really is bizarre. If third party stores could exist, someone would definitely have made an actually curated store by now. Francisco Tolmasky: I'd love an actually kid-focused @AppStore, instead of an @AppStore that seems designed to get kids addicted to "games" that are thinly-veiled slot machines. But that would require losing 30% of the revenues from those games, which is the only true @AppStore guideline. Previously: * Microsoft's Open App Store Principles * Schneier on Sideloading * Unpacking Clone Was the App Store's Top Download App Store App Store Scams Business iOS iOS 15 Sideloading 1 Comment 1 Comment Soren February 16, 2022 5:11 PM As for "computer says no," the problem is that Apple has to handle such huge quantities of app submissions every day that they have to automate the process to a high degree, and flexibly assign new requests to whoever is available to respond. Yeah, except: 1) they've created this problem for themselves. As a developer, you can argue that many apps shouldn't need a "review" at all. 2) Steve's comment presumably isn't just about App Review. There are lots of other areas where Microsoft's dev relations simply has a better reputation than Apple's. It's also understandable that Apple says you must submit an actual app to them to get a decision. You can't just describe what you plan to develop and ask them whether they will approve. Indeed, you can't. But... why not? If developers don't have to bet it all on an App Store acceptance, it also means that they might be more willing to build daring and interesting apps that currently are too risky. Sure, being on the App Store would remain the goal of most developers (it's hard to imagine it wouldn't remain the most important real estate on iOS), but many more things are possible if the all-or-nothing gamble is gone. I'm not sure Jason is right here. Mac software never needed the real estate of the App Store, and by and large still doesn't. Web apps don't. Magazines used to exist; review websites do now; word of mouth exists as well. Which isn't to say that the App Store provides zero value for marketing and reach. But I think plenty of indie devs would do OK without it. (Maybe that wasn't Jason's point? Not sure.) Apple would have to drop at least 99% of apps to make App Store "curated". 20K titles is a reasonable number. Yup. And I think Jason (or John?) made this point on a recent podcast -- that might be a more interesting App Store. Perhaps one that makes Apple less profit, but also one that proves valuable (in a less tangible way) to say "here's what makes iOS a fantastic platform". It isn't RandomGameWhereYouCollectGems. Stay up-to-date by subscribing to the Comments RSS Feed for this post. 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