There are many reasons a startup can fail. It is a dangerous world where every aspect of a business plan is uncertain. Investments can fall through, concepts can be stolen, and even laws can change that doom an exciting new startup. However, sometimes you find a problem where you wouldn’t expect it. And a perfect example is our story with the App Store. We spent a ton of time and effort to ensure that Apple acknowledged their faulty review.

Our Story

Our app is a a social news reader that helps professionals and marketers find the best content among their facebook and twitter accounts. The main point of our app is that we use social news streams to analyse and find the most relevant content for our users. And, no doubt, it’s a key value that we deliver and our users pay for. That’s why we use Facebook and Twitter for autorization.

It sounds very simple. And we had no problem when we published LikeHack on Google Play and in the App Store our first time. But then there were problems. On the next attempt to update our application and publish it, we got a rejection associated with the in-app purchases. It really was our fault. And soon we got it fixed. Frankly, we expected that everything would be fine, and millions of happy users will run to our application.

During the next review, the App Store directed us to point 17.2 which states that we can’t use Facebook and Twitter just for autorization purposes. But it was an incorrect criticism, because all of our features are based on social media accounts. Otherwise, our users would see an empty screen. Is it not a sad picture? We were sure that it was a mistake, so we tried to publish it again with additional explanations.

But we were rejected again. So we decided to write an appeal letter that would be reviewed in 1 week. A little bit later we recieved a telephone call, in which we had an opportunity to explain our position. It seemed like we had reached a certain understanding.

We were sure that now everything will be ok. But out app was rejected again. At that time the first release was already 3 months old. This situation really frustrated us. And we began to feel that we will never be able to successfully release our app. But an iOS app meant too much for us, both in terms of customer attraction and in investment development. So we expanded our review note, and wrote a new appeal letter. And…

… it was a miracle! Apple acknowledged their mistake! It had taken about 4 months for them to realise a simple fact.

Impact

Why was it bad for us?

- First of all, investor relationships. It’s the funniest thing, when you try to demostrate your startup to investors, they want to see your iOS app too. But they could only see the outdated version without the latest features. And it was very annoying. Because it lead to losing a lot of investments and discrediting our reputation.

- The second thing is feedback. It’s not surprising that millions of people around the world use iOS apps. So by launching our app, we really hoped that many users will be able to try and evaluate our product. This is extremely important from the point of view of the development process.

- And the last thing that we want to note is time. No doubt that time is the most valuable asset in our life. But the negotiation process has taken a lot of our time that we could have spent in a more productive way.

However, we are not the only ones affected by the approach taken by Apple. Many other apps have felt the frustration trying to have their app accepted. Apps such as Voice Answer were rejected when hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours were invested into the app in order to bring people a helpful solution. The developer, Sparkling Apps, was rejected from the Apple store without a clear explanation and was forced to be an Android only app until serious time and money was invested in compromising with Apple. This means a lot of lost revenue and market presence.

Why does it happen?

The review process is in need of a major change to better serve the community. Last year, a former app reviewer from Apple spoke out about the problem. He explained that they are very understaffed because Apple cannot find enough qualified people. They sit for hours going through apps and the majority of their time is spent on trying to catch pornographic content and trash that is hiding on a proposed application. The understaffing and tedious work they must perform makes it so reviewers “may accidentally toss out the gem,” the former app reviewer admits.

In the end

Thanks to persistence and not giving up, we were able to make Apple concede their mistake. The amount of time and money spent was worth it in the end, but the problem should have never existed, especially with such a simple mistake.

We respect Apple’s decision to keep the App store a high quality marketplace by using a review process because it ensures the quality that we all come to expect from Apple. However, if they want to improve, they need to update their process for reviewing applications. This will be great for their customers and app developers which will ensure that the App Store continues to be the premier marketplace for customers and developers alike.