Fixes for the App Store From A Developer Perspective

Yesterday, we told you about iGarageSale, an iPhone app that has been rated mature or 17+ due to the fact that with some digging, you can find a search box, and be exposed the horror that is the internet.

Examples of rejected and poorly rated apps have been cropping up over the last few weeks, but the question is, is there a better solution? As pointed out by bryman in the comments yesterday, the ratings are designed to limit access via the parental controls. so if a parent has made the decision to block Safari for example, it makes sense that any app that could give access to the internet should also be blocked.

From a developer's standpoint, it's a matter of the stigma that goes along with the rating, or the powerlessness of an outright rejection. Aaron Kardell, developer of the iGarageSale app, gave us his three ways to improve the app approval/rejection process: 

1. Transparency on the rules. Right now, there is no standard set of rules for developers to follow that will guarantee that their app is accepted -- or even that their app will have a high likelihood of being accepted. As it is, developers are gambling that Apple will approve their app. This makes it hard -- especially for independent developers -- to invest a significant amount of time on apps when there is uncertainty about their apps being approved.
2. Consider ways to decrease the review time, especially for updates. Right now if an issue is discovered in a released application, it will often take a minimum of 7 days, and usually longer for an update to be released on the App Store. I have a friend who has a bug fix for one of his apps that has been waiting for approval for 5 weeks. While he's waiting for approval of the fix, he's received a number of complaints through the ratings wondering why the issue hasn't been fixed. The issue is that the approval process as is doesn't easily scale to the number of developers now involved in submitting apps. I think the solution to this might be a trusted developer program of sorts that would allow minor updates through without as much oversight. And part of this could be that if there was bad behavior on the part of a developer that abused this process, there might be repercussions such as the loss of the ability to sell future apps in the store.
3. Meaningful app ratings. The standard line now appears to be that any app that provides unfiltered Internet access (regardless of the purpose) should have a 17+ rating. I can kind of understand where Apple is coming from on this, but the difficult part is the labeling that goes with that. In the case of iGarageSale, users are warned that the app contains "Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes". While it is true you could misuse the app and seek out mature/suggestive content, it is misleading and inaccurate to say that standard use of the app contains "Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes". I think they need a new category called "Unfiltered Internet Access" that is sufficiently explained. Keep the 17+ label if they must, but make it clear to users why the 17+ label exists.

Probably the hardest and biggest change as Aaron has laid out above, is the approval process itself. Apple has stated they have 40 people working full time to review/process 8500 apps per week. Scaling will continue to be an issue as the App Store shows no signs of slowing growth.

Joe Hewitt, developer of the Facebook for iPhone app recently aired his frustration with process on his blog:

The fact is this: Apple does not have the means to perform thorough quality assurance on any app. This is up to the developer. We have our own product managers and quality assurance testers, and we are liable to our users and the courts if we do anything evil or stupid. Apple may catch a few shallow bugs in the review process, but let's face it, the real things they are looking for are not bugs, but violations of the terms of service. This is all about lawyers, not quality, and it shows that the model of Apple's justice system is guilty until proven innocent. They don't trust us, and I resent that, because the vast majority of us are trustworthy.

I shouldn't have to argue for why it is better to assume people are innocent until proven guilty. There are plenty of successful platforms out there which free developers to publish anything, but punish them if they do something harmful. This allows developers to move fast, fix bugs immediately, get feedback from users at a very low cost. Any bug that Apple finds after their two week delay would have been found by users on day one, and fixed on day two. I'd rather have a bug in the wild for one day than have an app in the review queue for two weeks.

What do you think? Would these changes mean any meaningful difference for consumers? Should developers simply suck it up and realize they have to play by Apple's rules if they want access to the fastest growing platform?

Comments

[Jeff]

Apple are not doing quality assurance and never claimed they were.

a) they are ensuring you don't call illegal API's as spelled out quite clearly in the developer agreement you signed earlier.

b) they are making sure that you haven't slipped in content that would make *them* (as vendor) liable rather than you (as developer)