We got an email from Apple today saying that they don't approve of Beeminder's business model and we have 14 days to submit an updated app that's compliant with their guidelines.
Excerpt:
Customers expect the App Store to be a safe and trusted marketplace for purchasing digital goods. Apps should never betray this trust by attempting to cheat users in any way.
Specifically, we found that users can provide their payment information in order to create a monetary penalty that will be charged if the users don't achieve their goals. This concept is not suitable for the App Store.
We've sent an appeal and emphasized that our iOS app is just a tool to enter data and see graphs and it happens to send that data to Beeminder.com which is where the evil happens.
Will that be persuasive to them or will our appeals bounce off a faceless bureaucracy? Will we find another way to stay on the App Store or does Apple have it in for us? 😬
Resolves YES if Beeminder has been delisted at market close.
1,000
3.00Looks like we've prevailed! Lots of back-and-forth with App Store Review -- it's not quite explicit yet but they seem like they're satisfied that the Beeminder iOS app is a companion app which [long story that's too much to type right now and maybe who cares about Apple's opaque rules anyway]. In any case, I'm about to make the market price reflect current reality with my insider info unless someone else reads this fast enough and beats me to it.
@dreev Does it, if the app that remains on the store is no longer the app that used to be on the store (referring to the v6.3 update)? A little tongue-in-cheek, but really bummed that all links between the app and the site were severed.
@ianminds Fair question. The messages from App Store Review were opaque and ambiguous enough that we were throwing spaghetti at the wall to maximize the chances of satisfying them. (See also @parhizj's comment about intentional vagueness from Apple.) We don't actually believe it's required that there be no links to Beeminder so we figure we'll reintroduce that. (Also we accidentally broke the timer feature in our spaghetti-throwing rush, which we plan to fix quickly.)
Do let us know specific use cases for the link to Beeminder from the app: support@beeminder.com
For this market I think there'd only be resolution ambiguity if we'd needed to really decimate the functionality of the app.
Two pieces of information:
First is a bit dated: a picture of a reviewers' workstation (talk about information overload!)
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/07/app-store-35-percent-of-apps-rejected/
Second, I don't know if this shifts the probability too much one way or the other but I think it it in part explains the lack of a resolution so far:
'
Shoemaker also questioned why app review guidelines have somehow become more vague over time. “The guidelines were written in a very grey way,“ says Shoemaker. “We wanted to have wiggle room to be able to shift our approvals or rejections…the idea was to start that way and then refine them over time.”
“They were rewritten in 2017 and they did none of that. In fact, they opened up more grey areas – it should be pretty solid right now, the guidelines should be very black and white.”
'
@rperce Indeed, time for a second market ;-) https://manifold.markets/ianminds/will-apple-kick-beeminder-off-the-a-8008442f74e8
@rperce Yeah, it's now been well over the 2 weeks they originally specified and no further communication. They may leave us in limbo indefinitely.
Non-update: It's been a couple days with no further followup to their last ~"ok, thanks, we'll review further and get back to you". I'm not sure if we're now good unless they say otherwise or what. It still shows as an Unresolved Issue in the App Review section of our app but the overall status of the app is still "[green checkmark] Ready for Sale".
@dreev I don't know if this means there are vibrant discussions, or maybe they are spending the time bending over backwards to come up with a reason coherent with their policies to kick the app off? No new updates is information but I am not sure how to update at this point.
How the hell is it cheating users if you're up-front about money being removed from their account if they don't meet the goal? To be clear, I wouldn't want to use this app, but it does not seem like it's cheating users at all.
@jacksonpolack Huh, I hear there is indeed a lot of blatantly fraudulent stuff that somehow gets through the approval process on the App Store. But I'm skeptical that any of it has even superficial similarity to Beeminder. Actually if you know of anything, or can speculate about it, that would probably help us a lot to hear about, so we can avoid such appearances.
@dreev Out of curiosity, could you give an example of an unambiguously scammy app available in the app store?
@JohnSmithb9be Adam Wolf found this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-app-store-scams-fraud/
Willison owns a Samsung television and went to the App Store on his phone to install the accompanying Samsung remote control app called SmartThings. An app called Smart Things popped up, claiming to be a remote for Samsung televisions. Willison paid $19 for the app. “I thought wow, Samsung has gone downhill. They’re nickel-and-diming me for my remote control?”
It turns out the app was pretending to be the genuine Samsung product. His mistake, he says, was an “assumption that the App Store review process was good,” he said. “I held Apple in higher regard than I did Samsung.”
Breaking news, reply just now:
Hello,
Thank you for your reply.
We will require additional time as we take this new information into account. We do not require any further information about your app at this time.
Once we have thoroughly reviewed this information, we will contact you.
Best regards,
App Store Review