4.3 Design Guidelines - Apple please reconsider how this is enforced.

We have spoken to many developers in previous months who have run into issues with the new 4.3 Design Guidelines rules & had their apps rejected, seemingly by a bot, or in general, by a reviewer because of similarities to previous apps. They have been asked to combine their similar apps into one container app.


We understand why Apple is finally cracking down and doing this. They are trying to clean up the Appstore of clones, useless junk & other spam apps.


In the process however, this has seemingly hurt indie developers who are not using templates, and design their own games from scratch. We've spoken with several developers, many who pride themselves in creating unique content such as educational & games for children, receieve these notices with no method to appeal, and auto-responses making the same blanket statement, ending in frustration for the developer & wasted months in development time.


They are asked to combine their apps or games into one "single container app" to reduce the clutter in the Appstore. While the idea of this sounds great in theory, it is flawed in exection, simply because some apps and games are not meant to be combined.


Take a first grade educational app for instance. Say you program a math game that caters to 1st grade kids. Then you use that engine or framework to develop a math game for 3rd or 4th graders. Combining these games would make no sense from a marketing perspective, and from the perspective of a parent who is purchasing the app for their child who needs a math game for first graders only . We have actually spoken to parents and customers in an email survey, who said they would not like this change, and it would make it more difficult for them to find the app they need to install for their child's specific age group. They have asked us to not combine these apps that they have stored on their device, as they like to have separate applications and games for each of their children, in their respective age groups & content supplied.


This is just ONE example or highlight of how this actually ruins the end user experience. Forcing developers to combine apps into one container app does not benefit customers, especially those that are accustomed to having the one single app for it's functionality and purpose. That applies to educational games, tools that target a specific market group, or diet apps that target specific dietary needs and so forth.


Apple - We beg you. Please reconsider this new guideline, and don't be so heavy handed with the rejection notices. We understand the need to clean up the Appstore, and provide a better experience for users, & remove spam, but taking the guidelines this far is not the way to clean up the store.


We feel this is hurting the end user experience, and many of our customers love having the single application or game, rather than one larger bloated file installed on their device.


Don't force developers into combining apps into one container app. It does not make sense for the end user experience, and does not make sense from a marketing or distribution perspective whatsoever, and actually hurts the end user experience. Combining 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade math games does not equate to a better store experience, just as combining diet apps from various diets, does not help that person who is trying to get healthy, & wants a very specific diet app tailored to their specific needs.


Please reconsider revising this guideline, as I don't feel we are alone in this battle.


We appreciate the ability to be able to publish games to one of the best Appstores on the market. We hope that Apple revises these guidelines, so things aren't so heavy handed and difficult for indies, who are already struggling to make ends meet in this very competitive marketplace.


Sincerely,


Appstore developer

Replies

Any news on this subject?


We also are being affected by this changes.We build city apps and have contracts that says explicitly that an single and exclusive app needs to be published in Apple Store.


The clients don't want an combined experience. They have their customs and traditions, their tourist places and exclusive services, like "ticket dispenser" for exemple. They want to keep their visual identity and take their place in the store.

If Apple were a country, it would certainly be North Korea, I can not understand how a US company can take authoritative measures like these new guidelines. My company develops apps for delivery restaurants. It is obvious that everyone has the same functionality, "ONLINE REQUEST" and Apple does not understand it. As much as we create a code base for each app, in the end everyone will have the same resources, they will use the same webservices ... This is Ridiculous! Apple will be responsible for thousands of unemployed and the destruction of many consolidated business models worldwide. A despicable company that does not care about its users and developers. I pray for God's sake, reconsider all this and allow the applications to be sent.

>That is now being dictated by the Appstore, which I feel is very unfair toward developers who are not spamming or cloning games, but rather, providing a specific audience with the exact app they are looking for. After all, marketing is 100% of what makes an app successful these days. The gold rush days of the appstore are over, so if you don't have marketing, you don't have a specific target market in mind, then you don't have any reason to release an app in the first place. And that is what scares us the most as indie developers.


How is this not spamming or cloning? Apple is going in right direction - App Store is flooded with copycat apps.

I think the same, is the type of ruler / control that does not match with capitalism. Why control the life of the developer in this way? Let the end user decide whether an app is good or not. They act like a socialist country that controls their people, but they do not distribute iphones at all the same people....

Good afternoon.



I'm having the same problem and would like to know if there is any way we can come up with collective complaint demanding Apple to review guideline 4.3.Instead of improve the experience of users and developers it's harming.

Someone could go to change.org, and post a petition against the new guidelines, but I'm not sure if it would do any good.


We are not focused on the Apple Appstore anymore. If they accept our apps, wonderful. But we are NOT catering to this container app nonsense, and have our apps on other stores like Google Play suffer as a result of their policy changes.


We are not re-skinners, or cloners, but we are collateral damage as a result of these ridiculous new policies. It's absolutely absurd to think that someone would put, for instance, a Fitness or Diet container app with 100 different diets inside of them. Same thing goes for educational apps, radio apps, school or educational system tools etc. Whoever came up with this policy, really did not think about it in detail, and it just seems like a very arbitrary and foolish move by anyone who decided it would be a bright idea to implement this new policy..


We are not succumbing to this nonsense, and will continue to provide excellent apps to android users & other appstores alike, but we are no longer catering to Apple. They were our primary focus, but not anymore. The damage has been done, and our customers are the ones that suffer. They are the most frustrated with this new policy, and we have told them, if they want our games, they can get the devices that support them.


Just a very sad situation for all developers. Take care of re-skinners, cloners, and those that take advantage, but taking down other indie developers with them is just truly unfair, and unjust.


But alas, we have to move on. The Apple Appstore is no longer our focus, and we literally have no other choice.

Completely agree with you. We have an online ordering system for restaurants. We won 2 innovation startup awards. We have 100% native Obj-C and Java code. We use each OSs native components to make the apps look and feel native for each device. We customize ieach app for each restaurant to have it's own feeling and connect it to several 3rd party systems they are using like fleet management systems, POS etc. and we are now releasing apps only for google play. Our newest clients have a crippled product, even though we try to make bigger and bigger changes to each app in order to make it even more clear that they are not copycats, but apps that only share a minimum, logical amount of UX. Since we were always trying to be in par with HIGs and ASRGs we perfected our apps to have the best flow and usability for our users and we try to keep that in all our apps but Apple has different opinion on that, so it rejects every change we make. Good job Apple, thank you.

I am having the same problem. There's no logic to their claim. I keep asking which games are similar enough for them to ask me to create a container app for, but I keep getting the same copy and paste answer. In the 2 years I've been developing this has never happened to me. 3 apps were rejected for "Spam". 2 bug fixes and 1 completely new app. All 3 put into review and rejected at the same time after a 1 minute review. No matter what now, they reject anything I try to do. Bug fix, new app, anything. All telling me to make a container app.

Beautiful reply Zeldalink. I was heart broken after apple put me through this crap 4.3 design as well.


Well said man, I could not have said it better. It truly is time to move on to Android from this stupid apple guidline and platform. Every single day and year there is a "new" guideline and new stupidity to deal with. Enough is enough

Hi, I have the same problem... No matter what now, they reject anything I try to do. All telling me to make a container app. i have an unique app, (we think there is not other similar in all store) ... we submit.... and after one minute they reject with the same copy and paste reply... 4.3 Design spam.... absurd and frustating!!!! PLEASE, STOP USE BOT FOR APP REVIEW

We now have the same problem too. We are basiclly dead in the water and now need to work arround this or stop making apps for iOS. All our app have different icons, colors, buttons, and content and yet they now reject them as of 2 days ago.

Same with me. I have 14 apps and all they say is I need to combine the rejected app with my other apps. What other apps? Do I randomly combine several non-related apps into one container app and hope it will pass review? This is supposed to help the user, they say. So what do I tell the thousands of users that bought my rejected app and have to purchase another container app to get the same feature set? That doesn't help them at all. Dumb and dumber.

I have asked Apple which apps are very similar.

The answer was, "TRADE SECRET" so to speak.



Hello,


Thank you for your reply. Just as we would not share information from your Apple Developer Program account with another developer, we do not share the details of apps submitted under other Apple Developer Program accounts.


During our review, we found that this app duplicates the content and functionality of other apps submitted to the App Store, which is considered a form of spam and not appropriate for the App Store.


Apps submitted to the App Store should be unique and should not duplicate other apps. We encourage you to create a unique app to submit to the App Store. For more information about developing apps for the App Store, visit the https://developer.apple.com/develop/">Develop section of the Apple Developer website.


We look forward to reviewing your future submissions.


Best regards,


App Store Review

Request a phone call, they usually get back to you in few days and then you have a chance to explain yourself, get listened and probably get the app through (depending on the case, of course).

I requested a phone call 7 days ago and nothing. Still waiting.