Reject by Guideline 4.2.2

Question

hwqing OP

Created Apr ’19

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Hello everyone,

This is my problem on rejection by guideline 4.2.2.

I created one new app containing news list, and after clicking one of the news item, a new view come up with embedded web browser to display news content. User can also do some additional actions such as comment, add favorite and sharing. Besides, I implemented online chatting feature just like WhatsApp, WeChat, user can communicate each other by text message or sharing pictures. Also a friend sharing feature called "Moments" to let user post short text and pictures to share his/her description to all friends. Both chatting and moments function are implemented as pure native iOS functionality.

But the result is, my App was rejected by Apple reviewer 4 times, with guideline 4.2.2, minimum functionality. According to the statements of this 4.2.2 guideline, it meantions that my app only includes links, images, or content aggregated from the Internet with limited or no native iOS functionality. I admit that part of my app functionality is "links, images, or content aggregated from the Internet", but I also think my app provide sufficient additional features (chat, moments) that can not be treated as "limited or no native iOS functionality".

Could anyone give me suggestion how to proceed such situation, thank you very much.

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Answer 1

adib OP

Jul ’20

It sounds like that App Review do not have a full understanding of what the app does. Remember that the average review time is five minutes. Therefore you need to provide an overview the breadth of your app that can be deduced within that time.

Have you tried adding an "intro" screen which provides such overview? Notably highlighting native iOS functionalities of the app?

I've written an article on this if you're interested – google for "How To Pass App Store Review: Guideline 4.2 Design – Minimum functionality" for more information.

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Answer 2

xPodcasts OP

Sep ’20

I recently launched a news app. It's hard. My app was also rejected many times for the same reason. Below I am going to paste my answer from another similar thread. Hope it helps.

I recently finally launched my app to the App Store. It was consistently rejected for the same reason (Guideline 4.2.2 - Design - Minimum Functionality) for about a month before the first approval. It was a very struggling experience. Below are the things I tried. I hope it could help people who are in a similar situation.

Context: My app is for reading tech news (e.g. TechCrunch) and Venture Capital blogs (e.g. YC, A16z). I also use ML to generate audio for articles so users can listen to them like a podcast.
More details: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1529509067

Here are the things I tried:

Explain to reviewers that by nature a news aggregation app will mainly include links. Failed.
Show thumbnails for articles. Failed.
Load parsed content directly instead of showing the source websites. Failed
Add the "article bookmark" feature. Failed.
Explain to reviewers that "article bookmark" uses persistent storage and it can't be done through a website. Failed.
Add the "article commenting" feature. Failed.
Update the app metadata (e.g. description, screenshots) to highlight the "audio" feature. Failed.
Explain to reviewers that "audio" is a differentiator and the feature largely leverages native iOS functionalities. Approved!

Looking back, in my case, the original concept of "listen to articles" was probably already sufficient, but we just really need to help reviewers get it.

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