App rejected without violating any Guidelines

Are you sure that the rejection did not refer to a specific guideline? What exactly did they write?

Yes, I am sure. They wrote to me saying that they will contact me by phone, and they did. But while speaking on the phone the response to my inquiry on what was the basis in the guidelines for the rejection I could not get a straight answer. The replies changed and varied among the following:

1. Even though it is legal we are not obligated to publish it (this comes from the first rejection claiming it was illegal, but is not. It seems they came to agree with me with the fact that it is legal. Nobody is saying that you are obligated to publish it, I am saying it is not ground to reject it.)

2. It is a business decision ( rather useless explanation because it does not help me to fix the issue, not that any other the other explanations did)

3. People need to meet in person to exchange money, and this is risky therefore is not appropriate for the app store ( people meet in person to ride at Uber and they still have the Uber up and running)

4. We have rejected other apps for the same reason.

After the call was over he sent me this message
"

From Apple

Hello Carlos,

Thanks for your time on the phone today.

As we discussed, apps that facilitate meeting in person to exchange cash or foreign currency are not appropriate for the App Store.

We encourage you to review your app concept and incorporate different content and features that are in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

If you have questions about Apple’s Legal Policy, or other legal topics, please visit Contact Apple Legal page.

Please feel free to contact me at +1-669-***-*** between 7 am - 3 pm Pacific Time if you need further clarification.

Best regards,

name

"

I'm sorry this happened to you. It sounds like you have a legitimate business idea, but Apple simply doesn't think your idea should be in their store. It may compete directly with Apple Pay Cash via iMessages, or maybe they find there is a legal risk that could put Apple in jeopardy if a cash transaction went south.

My point is, Apple can do what they want with their store. Just like Target or Wal-Mart can dictate the items they sell on their own shelves. The rejection reason does NOT have to be in their rejection guidelines. They are also free to change the guidelines at ANY time.

Unfortunately we're all in the same boat. Apple will do what is in their best interests.

Can you elaborate on your comment:

>the review team could not point me a specific reason

in light of your further comment:

>this comes from the first rejection claiming it was illegal

Do I understand that during your conversation you got someone named Carlos to switch from "it is illegal" to "it is not appropriate for the app store" - is that correct? Well if so, perhaps he or others still think it really doesn't "comply with all legal requirements" (see section 5 of the guidelines) and rather litigate with you over the telephone, he switched to the less offensive "not appropriate".

Sorry.

Let me explain what I am saying with respect to the first rejection. I submited a new version of the app to fix a bug, and I received a rejection claiming that the app was not legal in all the countries where it was avaliable. I therefore requested an appeal for the app to be accepted, by restriction be given to the UnitedStates and Mexico where I know it is legal to exchange currency and is not regulated if the amount is less than 10K USD, (according to lawyer consultation and online research). My app only allowed exchange for less than 1K USD. Once the appeal was rejected I received a phone call to "explain" why my app was not accepted. During the call, it was mention to me that even though the exchange of currency is a legal activity it does not mean that they have to publish it.

By the time I got the phone call it seemed to me that they where ok with the fact that it is legal. The reason I mentioned during the phone call the legallity of the app was because it did not make sense to me why the app was being rejected. I was also thinking that they where still under the idea that the app was illegal, but by their responses does not seem like that was their belief, or at least they explicitly dismissed the fact that they believe it was illegal. I even offer the possibility for my attorny to call them to clarify things. They refuse to talk to my attorny and refer me to their legal department. I just gave up and did not contact the legal department at all.

I believe the guy who gave me the call did not know why my app was rejected either.

Yes I know, apple explicitly says in the contract that they may reject the app for no reason. Then they gave you a list of reasons why they may exclude your app but explicitly mention that the list does not restrict the generality of the previos statement i.e. to rejected for not reason. I still believe it is bad business to not follow your own guidelines or not have a complete and precise document. I believe if they had a preaproved process they will increase productivity.

It sounds like you believe you were able to convince them that your app is not illegal. My comment was that I don't think they really care nor were they convinced one way or the other - they have decided it may be illegal and therefore it is not appropriate for the App Store.

"Since this decision was not based on any guideline how can Apple guarantee that another app would not be taking the same business model than my app?"

Where do you get the mistaken understanding that Apple guaranteed any of that?

"If in two years or six months another app with the same business idea is approved this will be very unfair."

Your post gives the impression that during your six months of app development you never did any research on the history of the Apple App Store, and how Apple policy has developed over the years.

You may be right. Still, they did not give me any reason why was rejected and I am surprised that the most valuable technology company behaves unprofessionally. If they decided that it was illegal and therefore rejected my app based on that opinion they should have stated that they believe it was illegal. Moreover, the decision of the legality should hopefully involve legal counsel and be justified in written documents, so it is somewhat unprofessional not to state explicitly that you believe it is illegal if you genuinely think so.

At the end the question is, is there anything that can be done?

"Where do you get the mistaken understanding that Apple guaranteed any of that?"

If Apple were to accept some applications with the same business model and not others, then it will be creating anti-competitive practices. That is illegal, and apple or any other company does not need to agree to those rules, that is where I got the "mistaken understanding.

"Your post gives the impression that during your six months of app development you never did any research on the history of the Apple App Store, and how Apple policy has developed over the years. "

I am not sure what is on your mind when you say "history of the Apple App Store, and how Apple policy has developed over the years." Perhaps you can post a link to a source or explain in more detail what you are implying. Are you saying that Apple has a history of stealing developers business models?

Look up the urban dictionary definition of "You've been Sherlocked."

Also note that, historically, an app approval or rejection does not seem to set any strong precedent as to whether Apple will approve or reject a similar app from the same or another developer in the future. They do not guarantee consistency in their interpretetion of their own guidelines for app approval.

If you really want to protect a business model in the U.S., try contacting a patent attorney for advice.

Hi Carlos, I have a similar issue with my app and I have clear proof that they are creating anticompetitive practice in my case. Where you able to take any further action? What can you recommend me to do? thanks

This thread is over two years old. I sincerely doubt Carlos is going to respond. However, I can tell you that the concept of "anticompetitive practice" is evaluated on the market as a whole, not an individual vendor's private store. If you want to create some currency exchange app, you can do that with a web site or an android app. If you want to sue Apple, you can probably do that too. Such a lawsuit will probably cost you more than you ever would have made from the app store. Even if Apple had approvided your app, the legal consultations you would need for such an app would probably also cost you more than you would ever make. What you are talking about is a very heavily regulated industry.

I was not able to get the app in the Store. As Jhon Daniel points out, going into a legal battle

Against Apple is going to cost you a lot of money. I do believe that Apple might be doing this

to avoid competition and that is certainly illegal but there is nothing one can do about it.

Perhaps you cold take this to your congressman. To be honest I have no good advice for you.

How did the legal battle went?

That said, exchanging foreign currency is borderline illegal in many countries without a license. Most countries only recognizes one legal tender (its own currency) and thus using any other currency for trade is not legal – unless exempted by the foreign exchange license.

Furthermore I was a bit surprised that you didn’t start with a web app for this. It doesn’t appear that the business’ concept depends on any native app functionality (which in turn risking Guideline 4.2 rejection). Moreover you’d be leaving out Android users if you didn’t start with a web app (and grow to native once you have some traction).