The Slow Creep of Approvals

Over the last 3-4 weeks we have had a series of apps get approved. It's not fast. It's not a lot. But it is progress.

We submitted a group of four apps on May 24th. First the first time in forever, none were rejected (not true, but I'll get to that shortly). One week later, on May 31st, all four were approved.

We then submitted a single app on June 2nd. It was approved on June 9th.

One week turn around time is pretty reasonable. We'll see how it goes when we are submitting a bunch of updates and new sites at the same time. We are about to embark on a huge submission process. We have a little over 300 apps we are about to submit.

One of our apps was rejected because of the rating. We had to change it to a 17+ rating. But, since it didn't require a new binary we were able get it approved without additional processing. It was a fair rejection too. The content is similar to that of The Onion and their app is 17+ as well.

Blogs With Balls 3: Where it is about individuality

I'm fresh off a trip to Chicago -- first time to visit -- for the sports bloggers conference Blogs With Balls 3. We, Notice Software, were a media sponsor of the event providing their iPhone and Android apps.

The speakers and topics were very good, but the best part for me is talking to the individual bloggers. You quickly realize that everybody has a different take on the industry. Some are reporters, some are fans, some want to make money, some want to have fun, some want to work. Talk to 100 sports bloggers and you'll get 100 different approaches.

A blog is a tool. Like a microphone. It's the voice you give it that makes it interesting.

Number Two: An Approval From Apple

Blogs With Balls, which was originally rejected for not having a broad enough audience, was approved.

We added a Facebook integration, changed our marketing text, and submitted it alone.

I'm not sure which made the difference. I'm guessing the submission of it by itself.

Oops! This rejection is on us.

Well, we bungled that one. The content of our app was incorrect.

We were putting the wrong content into the app. Can't knock Apple for rejecting it.

I would like to think that if the approval process was fast and they hadn't noticed, or didn't feel responsible for it, that our readers would have informed us right away.

However, it has been in the Android market for a week with 100 downloads and we hadn't heard a peep. Very strange.

Clarification

We have had more than one app approved since March 15th. We have two product lines and I am only focusing on our blog reader line.

We also do television station news applications for Time Warner Cable. We have had a handful of these approved in the last 2 months.

Apple never rejects and never asks us to bundle the tv station apps. They also never ask for the documentation saying we have the rights to use logos and images in the apps.

You Better Be Big If You Want In The Apple App Store

This is part of a series of posts. The intro is 'A Series Of Rejections'.

One of the six blogs was rejected because:

We've reviewed your app and have determined that this application is not appropriate for the App Store because it is intended for a limited audience.

If you would like to share it with friends and family, we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.

If you believe that you can add additional user functionality to your app so that it can be accessible to a wider audience, we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.

This is a great catch all rejection. You see, when we explained the size of the audience that the app it was no longer about the audience, but about a limited feature set. No matter that it was the EXACT SAME feature set of the baseball app that was just approved.

What feature was missing? Apparently, Facebook integration is the one that will "put it over the top". Yep, that's right, Apple is promoting Facebook. And why not? It's what everybody is doing.

We re-submitted the app today. The others? We have no clue.

Now, we are sitting at May 11th and we have one app approved in the last 8 weeks. Hell of a business isn't it?

What Goes Around Gets Rejected

This is part of a series of posts. The intro is 'A Series Of Rejections'.

On Tuesday, May 11th, the six apps submitted on April 30th were rejected. Why? Well, because:

Thank you for submitting your app to the App Store. We have reviewed your app and determined that we cannot post these applications to the App Store because they provide duplicate functionality of other applications on the App Store.

We also have determined that the content and functionality provided by your applications are closely related. In the future, it would be appropriate to combine related applications into a single application, using the In App Purchase API when applicable.

Sound familiar? This time, they didn't just group our submitted apps into a single lump. Oh no. They went through our entire catalog of apps, pulled out apps that covered the same teams, and determined that these apps should be grouped together.

Nevermind that my original objections still applied:
1. They are from separate brands.
2. They are from separate publishers.
3. They are free content apps.

But wait, there's more. One of the six apps submitted got rejected for a different reason...