Apple Rejects the Hey Calendar from Their App Store
world.hey.com"If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps." — App Store Review Guidelines, 2010 (https://www.cultofmac.com/58590/heres-the-full-text-of-apple...)
(It often helps.)
>"If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps."
The context is that Steve was still involve with Apple's decision. It is similar to a lot of things at Apple. They were there for a reason but it seems a lot of the context were gone once Steve was not there.
Now that’s a dude who’d been around the block a few times. It’s just not worth it to do business with people who treat you like garbage. No matter how big you are or how small they are.
That statement seems like it would legally be extortion. I guess by only saying never helps and not that it hurts, it isn't?
> That statement seems like it would legally be extortion.
Like their entire App Store business?
While I see what you’re trying to say here, the App Store is not extortion. You don’t have to build an app for their platform. If you do, you do so knowing beforehand that the app requires approval to be listed on their App Store, and that such approval is not guaranteed or owed just because you think it is. You’re also free to distribute the app privately the way many enterprises do, and how services like TestFlight work. You can use web technologies and bypass any App Store, revenue cut, or approval process. Every step of the way no matter which way you go, you’re making an informed choice, willingly. Choosing to go down the App Store path, regardless of if side loading is available or not, is not extortion. Nobody forced you to build an app for a platform that requires approval and has a long history of denying apps. I don’t understand the attitude everyone has where they feel entitled to shit just because it’s something they want. Private company. Closed platform. Walled garden. Approval process. This isn’t a democracy and never was. Why do you think you can will something you don’t own or have any decision making powers at into something it never claimed to be and never was? Fix capitalism, or change our culture not to revolve around greed and maximizing profits, and the shit Apple does won’t happen. If there is a way to make more money, walled gardens to extract more money will always exist.
In my opinion, all of this falls apart once you consider that Apple has sabotaged the mobile web as an application platform basically since the inception of the iPhone. You actually just don't have a choice if you want to reach that audience, in a lot of cases. Heck, we only now just got Web Push which sort of kinda works sometimes on mobile Safari at the moment.
I also disagree that every organization in a capitalist society has to be inherently evil, but that might be more of a fundamental discussion ;)
Apple has sabotaged the mobile web as an application platform basically since the inception of the iPhone.
There was a mobile web before the iPhone?
That's fair but it doesn't refute GP's point.
Things have improved vastly with the introduction of web push but Apple is still dragging their feet on making it possible to create a good mobile experience with web-only apps.
Now, I generally don't like conspiracy theories and I seek not to attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity (or even a lack of attention, etc.) However, in this particular case it seems very obvious to me that Apple is doing it in order to force developers to build native apps.
How do I use PWA with BLE on iOS? I can't unless I will use App Store and native application. So I have no choice but to use App Store.
You have a choice, don’t make an iPhone app if you don’t want to deal with the App Store.
Extortion offers a choice as well.
Extortion usually demands something under the threat of something bad happening that you do not want, and the action is taken against you by someone else.
You have a choice to write and iOS app and publish to the App Store or not. If you choose not to, what bad action is Apple purposely and actively taking against you in retaliation to you not giving in to their demands? Oh wait, they didn’t demand anything from you or threaten anything bad should you not meet those demands. They didn’t approach you with a demand. They didn’t approach you at all. They don’t care about you or anything you have going on.
How is Apple extorting you here? I would like to understand what state of psychosis I must obviously be in for this to be reality
> Extortion usually demands something under the threat of something bad happening that you do not want, and the action is taken against you by someone else.
The action you do not want is "rejecting any appeal/blackballing" if you tell people what Apple reviewers did.
You claim "Apple reviewers are within their rights to do that, it's their garden/world you're just living in it."
---
Your professor unjustly gives you a D, but if you complain to anyone, he'll make it an F. It's your fault; you voluntary chose to enroll in that class knowing that the professor could assign you a poor grade. Losers weepers.
As someone who has deployed dozens of apps to the App Store for clients, avoid submitting first time apps during the holidays and add free account solely for Apple reviewers.
It appears they submitted the app before the holidays?
> After spending 19 days to review our submission, causing us to miss a long-planned January 2nd launch date
Apple’s offices were closed 22/12 - 01/01, which is a not-insignificant chunk of those 19 days (not mentioning that their chosen launch date was the first day back)
People keep bringing this up, but the reality is that the US holiday season slowdown is only for a handful of days and not sufficient to explain a 19-day review time.
From Apple's announcement[1]:
> On average, 90% of submissions are reviewed in less than 24 hours. However, reviews may take a bit longer to complete from December 22 to 27.
It took longer because they submitted a new app where reviewers have no means of signing in.
Where do you get this from?
> Apple rejected our stand-alone free companion app “because it doesn’t do anything”.
It says on DHH’s blog. We can’t know for sure unless he shares a screenshot of it but more or less that is the reason because I was rejected with this same reason before.
Providing credentials for a test account is mandatory, and as a company publishing multiple apps it’s not something they would miss.
It feels to me that, if you were going to make the complaint that DHH has, you would also explicitly mention that you had given them test account credentials. The actual reasonable complaint would be to say "we gave them test account credentials and they _still_ said our app was non-functional". But, that isn't the messaging here, it's not even mentioned. Given that DHH has very public opinions about Apple, I find it hard to believe he would miss the opportunity to make such a slam dunk, unless it wasn't true to make that claim.
So you think they intentionally not provided credentials, ruining their own release plans, yet somehow Apple took 19 days to realize and reply? The internet is funny…
Some Apple reviewers will take into account existing data too. Not just being able to sign in. So the provided credentials should have enough data.
This is a quote from DHH from LinkedIn:
>Of course we gave them a login. We’ve been publishing apps on the App Store for over a decade. This was not a low-level mistake. It went all the way to the app review board.
In another response he writes that the reviewers did in fact log in.
Can't wait when App Store model is finally dead and installing from multiple sources like I can on Windows or MacOS is normal on phones as well.
I remember when Epic tried to do this and the internet piled on them for being greedy.
Let’s be clear, the reason is absolutely greed. If Epic were charged 0% to be on the App Store and for transactions (minus fees to CC providers, etc), they absolutely would not have sued.
I see 2005-2025 as a period of appification to counter the complexity and sprawl of the old internet (which was fine and interesting and simple enough for us, but not everybody).
>2025 will see the best of both worlds (we will still easily install apps, easily see permissions shared etc. - But will also get our freedom back, companies won't have 30% revenue taken, etc.). Optimistic, huh.
So much to write about techspypro @gmail com which if I start I will cover the whole internet with the good jobs this hacker has done for me so far but right now all I can say to wisetechacker is, I will forever be grateful to you, you really saved me from sudden heart break from my spouse with your hacking services I found out right on time before my spouse could execute his plan with his side chick
In my experience, if you add a demo feature to the app then they allow it. The demo allows the reviewer to get passed the login screen and explore what the application is. I think this is a good approach. It also lets curious users see what the app is like too.
"Hopefully our example, and the countless others we’ve seen over the years, will finally force competition authorities around the world to act." You would think Apple, in the middle of being investigated from all sides for monopoly, would think twice before rejecting Hey for a second time for a stupid reason
One can only dream. But one should also fight. You don’t get something for nothing.
The hey calendar without the hey email is a something good for nothing. Dream the fight!
Apple rejected our stand-alone free companion app “because it doesn’t do anything”. That is because users are required to login with an existing account to use the functionality.
This is a ridiculous charge. The App Store is filled with high-profile applications that require an existing service account and simply presents a login screen when first launched. Here are just four:
Not sure if there's something else going on beneath that charge. Maybe DHH needs to take a walk with Tim Cook like the Musk man did.
> Yes, there are lots of apps that do absolutely nothing until you log in.
Having had my own app in the store for > 13 years, and shipping hundreds of other updates for various apps (if you follow any major sports, you likely have some of my code on your phone), Apple provides developers with an option to provide reviewers with details about how to use a test account or another way to access services.
Further, you can ship for approval well ahead of release, and schedule when it goes public in the store. You can even update it before that scheduled release and ship the more refined version on the originally scheduled date.
Sending it off to Apple in the week leading up to Christmas is amateur hour. Anyone that’s been in the app industry knows that Apple (corporate, not stores) basically shuts down the entire week leading up to the holiday.
This is pithy complaining by DHH.
> After spending 19 days to review our submission, causing us to miss a long-planned January 2nd launch date
If this review time period caused Hey to miss their launch date, this is a major signal that their developers do not have ANY experience with the iOS App Store.
> That is because users are required to login with an existing account to use the functionality.
Again, this is clearly spelled out in the Apple App Store requirements. You MUST provide credential for reviews, and those credentials must work. Additionaly, if you are pushing users to login through an external provider, providing a "Demo Mode" is an easy way around App Store restrictions.
This entire article reaks of inexperience, which is pretty incredible since Hey has gone through similar in the past[0].
My suggestion, hire software engineers with experience releasing to the app store.
I think you're misreading. They are being rejected because the account requires a login to a service that isn't sold via IAP, not because they failed to provide a demo login to reviewers. There's no way they haven't been providing demo logins for Basecamp all these years.
As for review turnaround times, it's been quite awhile since multiple weeks without a response has been normal. In a normal app store submission process, with an app this size, an experienced team can plan to make requested changes with that much lead time before a launch date.
I'm surprised though that they didn't ship this calendar app with a simple calendar you can use without paying. That's how they handled the email app deadlock; there's a temporary random email generator feature that anyone can use, which gives the app the requested out-of-the-box functionality. Seems like the same workaround could have been successful here.
> They are being rejected because the account requires a login to a service that isn't sold via IAP
I'm extremely skeptical of this claim. I have apps in the app store that behave exactly as you've described and Apple has not rejected any of our submissions. One app uses a third party login, one uses a first party login. One allows for registration within the app, the other requires registration outside of the app.
>it's been quite awhile since multiple weeks without a response has been normal
You are correct that typically reviews are very fast. That said, we recently had a new version of an app take 2 weeks (14 days) to get reviewed and rejected due to a similar, but different, issue. My guiddance is always submit very early (4+ weeks), especially when you have a launch date with marketing or other real-world tie-ins.
There are easy ways to work around Hey Calendar's rejection, but only if you submit early and are prepared to do the work. Similar to your suggestion, providing a "Demo Mode" where a user can see what the app does without login easily solves the rejection issue. I can say this with confidence as I've done it in the past with an app that is still on the app store.
This is correct, I have been rejected multiple times on the App Store too and Basecamp’s app are no different. We all have to abide the rules. Compared that with our Android app of the same app, it got clone to a different Android store and it was very hard to take it down.
We don’t cry over social media, we just do the work.
Yes, there are apps that sell something from the web and hide it behind a login in their app, and that's the whole functionality. I don't think that's in dispute. There are screenshots of other examples in the dhh article (maybe one is from your company's app.)
If you are saying because such apps exist, Hey can't have been rejected for doing the same thing as those apps do...c'mon, you're an experienced iOS developer, right? :)
Why assume that another developer's experiences are not legitimate when they have a long tenure and multiple apps in the store?
And why mock working 19 days ahead when your guidance is only 11 days longer and your worst case was five days shorter? I could see it if you thought that they should submit extra early because they've been targeted by Apple in the past, but you don't believe that they have been.
Or
Maybe you don't have all the information because it is not entirely spelled out in the blog post, they have all the engineers they need because they have experience, they already did everything you said but Apple keeps being Apple, and your advice is not needed ?
They missed their launch date due to Apple Review.
That does not scream "they have the experience they need".
While they may not listen, they absolutely need to hear the advice to submit earlier.
Considering
- the average processing time is 24h
- Apple advises you that things slow down between 22-27 Dec
would you say submitting on December 12th, with the goal of being ready by the second of January, is “submitting early”? Seems already extremely conservative.
In my years working with mobile, I never saw any review take longer than three days, ever. Nineteen days is an eternity and probably indicates some internal commotion going on. Who has ever sent their app for review a full month before release?
For a brand new app with a hard target release date of 1/2, I would have submitted before thanksgiving with the intention of getting a version of the app approved before the 22nd of December. Then I would have submitted again any fixes required or if there was any additional work done. Again, something an experienced dev would have done because they know that the Apple review process is a black box and you must expect and schedule around rejection.
So no, submitting on the 12th, in the middle of holiday season, is not submitting early. Yes, I know Apple says things only slow down for 22-27, but experience tells me they actually slow down starting the week of Thanksgiving and the slow down lasts until 1/2.
The better option would have been to schedule the release for 1/12 or sometime that is not the day everyone comes back to work. Many mistakes were made in this release planning.
No, indeed, it sounds more like "the Apple Review is random and unpredictable", which no one can account for.
This is a quote from DHH from LinkedIn:
>Of course we gave them a login. We’ve been publishing apps on the App Store for over a decade. This was not a low-level mistake. It went all the way to the app review board.
In another response he writes that the reviewers did in fact log in.
Did you provide the login credentials for the demo account?
DHH really needs to control his temper. Instead of focusing on the discrimination of his app (while there are other apps similar to HEY Calendar, why theirs rejected), he keeps mentioning about Apple’s 30% commission but this commission only applies to small number of developers. If you don’t earn more than $1 million in a year, you only pay 15%. If you earn more than that but have subscriptions (like HEY) then you pay 15% after the first year of the subscription.
I think he should just focus on the discrimination part instead of mentioning about the tax or Apple being a monopoly. I don’t how mentioning those things is going to help him to solve the issue. (Since it is already decided by a judge that Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on the App Store)
And, shops with no monopoly and less customer loyalty are charging by and large the same percentage.
For that matter, even supermarkets charge for shelf positioning.
Yea, but your choice of neighborhood doesn't lock you in to only being allowed to shop in a single supermarket.
In a lot of neighborhoods that's exactly what it does.
Also, you can shop for iOS apps in other places, like https://setapp.com/.
> In a lot of neighborhoods that's exactly what it does.
In what country/world/universe? I frequently go to a Costco that definitely isn't in my neighborhood. Haven't had any visits from the supermarket police yet.
Also, that's not an alternative store, that's simply a subscription app bundle.
It's still a valid point. Is it ok to take 15% more if you make more money? Does the marginal cost of supporting an app _increase_ as opposed to stay the same or decrease?
Depends on the app, but for some apps, the more users, the more your cost per user increases, because of the type of user in each cohort.
Early adopters tend to explore and self-support more. Late majority need more TLC.
Those costs would not be borne by Apple, though.
On the contrary, these users ask Apple for support for all manner of not-Apple app things.
Even my very tech illiterate mother knows the difference between a 3rd party app she downloaded and first party Apple apps.
Even still, people might ask Apple for support, but I highly doubt they receive any support beyond a generic message informing them to contact the app developer.
No it also hurts small developers that need funding. Publishers and investors work on a hit model, giving advances to lots of small projects in the hopes that they have a hit. If all hits at taxed at 30%, then the available funding for everyone goes down.
If the government added an additional 50% tax on books that sold over a million copies, it would affect funding for many more authors than the ones with books over the threshold.
Luckily, small developers are unlikely to reach the $1m pa to qualify for the 30% fee. They’ll be subject to 15%.
Reread, I wrote about small developers getting way less funding, because the successful ones that grow into big companies fund the rest of the investors' portfolios, similar to all other publishing.
>DHH really needs to control his temper.
What good would that do?
I have multiple apps which require a login in the Store, and have never had a rejection for this reason. Either a reviewer made a mistake (it happens, and honestly, DHH's language here implies a conspiracy where a cockup is more likely), or they screwed up the submission.
One thing I have found that matters – your app's launch screen had better be as vanilla as possible. If you even hint at conversion, sales, sign-up, etc, you're going to get dinged.
Either way, this has a "smell" to it.
re: the 19 days issue
you're planning around the time where most of the people who review these things are going to be taking PTO. as far as I could tell reading the guidelines the only guarantee apple gives you is that they'll get to it as soon as possible
it's also a little funny that DHH is saying that apple exempted them from the rules last time and then a couple paragraphs later is complaining that apple exempts other companies from the rules as well
Anyone who has ever deployed an app to the iOS App Store knows, very well, that Apple slows reviews during the US Holiday season. Additionally, anyone who has done this also knows that Apple review times are extremely variable from 1 day to 1 month.
I agree, the duration of the review is irrelevant to this complaint. I would suggest hiring SWEs/consultants who actually understand the iOS App Review process the next time you want to release an app, since Hey obviously does not understand it.
The US holiday season slowdown is only for a handful of days and not sufficient to explain a 19-day review time.
From Apple's announcement[1]:
> On average, 90% of submissions are reviewed in less than 24 hours. However, reviews may take a bit longer to complete from December 22 to 27.
Correct, but anyone with experience attempting to release during this timeframe knows that review times between Thanksgiving and the new year are always slower than normal.
Additionally, brand new apps, not new versions of existing apps, always take longer.
I constantly recommend to both my project team and other teams asking for advice to have a submission in to the App Store 4 weeks before you want to release. Otherwise you risk exactly what happened here.
Apple preemptively warns developers about longer processing times during the holidays every year. (Until recently, they did no reviews at all during the week of Christmas.) E.g., https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=xpkhwg3l
The US holiday season slowdown is only for a handful of days and not sufficient to explain a 19-day review time.
From Apple's announcement[1]:
> On average, 90% of submissions are reviewed in less than 24 hours. However, reviews may take a bit longer to complete from December 22 to 27.
>it's also a little funny that DHH is saying that apple exempted them from the rules last time and then a couple paragraphs later is complaining that apple exempts other companies from the rules as well
The author wants clear and fair rules so that exemptions are never even needed. I think the article is pretty clear on this.
Getting their exemption was an absolute nightmare for them - It’s certainly not something they are gloating over.
Hey didn't get special treatment. They got the published rules changed in regards to ALL E-Mail apps. Not just theirs. And they clearly show the resulting policy update in this post. That's not special treatment. That's progress.
For sure. I don't think I implied otherwise.
DHH knows best.
What is this idiocy? Apple has always required a demo account for such apps. This is not a secret
I think this is a fair summary for those of us that haven’t been paying attention to Hey, although if someone has a better roundup I’d love to read it
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298552/apple-hey-email-...
This is from 3+ years ago.
It is, but this post references a previous saga that I was unaware of. And after reading that link, I felt better equipped to understand what was happening in this post.
That’s also why I asked if there was a better summary available, preferably from a 3rd party.