ProgrammerHumor
buildingAnAppIsSoEasy
Discussion
Apple: Your app is not complaint with our guidelines: 1. a), b), c), d), e), f) … xy), xz), 2. … 9000. i), ii), … xx). Please don’t hesitate to ask us how to resolve those.
Devs: all of those have been implemented in last two builds, why isn’t it complaint this time?
Apple: read our guidelines: 1. a), b), c), d), e), f) … xy), xz), 2. … 9000. i), ii), … xx).
Devs reupload the same build.
Apple: your submission has been reviewed and accepted for purchase.
Devs: screw you!!!!!!
Hahaha… there’s some luck involved. Depends on the particular reviewer’s material condition, caffeination, hydration, socialization etc etc.
Oh yes: I have a bad day, I‘ll make your day even worse!
With crapple that is 100% the expectation
Especially if your app has the potential to collect all them juicy metrics. They want all of that user info goodness.
or <Vendor>-Store transactions.
ISTG you get through the approval process if you have some monthly payment.
Even without all that, they were weirdly strict on every icon and image being rescaled perfectly for every device even if it isnt even supported. They have always accepted my build first try, but my store page is always scrutinized heavily
that's when I switch to android and just put the APK on the github releases tab. Note, only works for personal projects.
Remember. Whatever you do, do not base your livelihood on the kindness and generosity of google. They have been known, multiple times, to terminate dev accounts with robot-generated reasons for appeals with absolutely zero human review.
It's not worth the headache. My opinion, at least.
Over my career I've built and launch 80 or so (good) iOS and Android apps. I'm now all in on PWAs.
Are they better for clients? They can't tell. Are they better for users? Maybe. But are they one config file vs the worse process I've ever come across in all of modern software? All day every day.
The app stores are simultaneously so restrictive yet so demanding, and frankly, such little bitches.
"Oooh noooo you can't say that to your users, we forbid it! Oooooh noooo you have to use our shitty payment gateway... 30% please. Oooh noo we just changed something you don't care about, you have to update your app again for our benefit. I just don't feel like approving today, thanks for your $100 now throw your complete app in the bin. Oooooh noooo..."
If you go through the process once it seems reasonable, if complex. When you go through it enough times you see it's just a shit show disgusting a monopoly. There's good stuff in the Apple castle, I just can't find the effort anymore to get access to it.
Thankfully, because it's such a loose process, I've enough work arounds that every app eventually got published... but at what cost (to my sensitive feelings)?
Come here my darling PWA, you would never treat me like this.
But PWA is for web apps right? How do you do it for regular Apps build in something like flutter?
You don't, you make a web app instead of a flutter app. That's the point of PWA.
Nice thing about doing that is it works for all platforms instead of just one.
GNU Savannah approval
Google absolutely forced me to make a privacy statement even though i stated that the app doesn't collect any user information and in fact can't even make an internet connection. So i ended up just making a markdown file in the repository saying that i don't collect, store, transfer or process any data (not even just not any user data) and that google really wants me to make a privacy statement about it.
You forgot the part after it is published and approved
This can also just be applied to building the app...
Apple is the absolute worst sometimes
But Google is getting there
Usually the last hill is also the steepest
Tim Sweeney?
My fist time submitting an app I had to go through 4 different submissions trying to get the testers to check the location availability settings.
I put it in the initial submission but had to explain like 3 times to failed submissions that the API is geo-restricted and they need to test the app in one of the submitted locations.
Project manager was freaking out lmao.
4 submissions? You’re lucky
People have taken months
The last 10-20% will take 90% of the budget and time.
True. Just for the kicks I made macOS app, but turns out you have to pay monthly/yearly subscription for being “apple developer”. I understand your app has to be verified and shit, but one time payment should be an option. Plus the subscription in my country costs twice as much in my currency opposed to USD.
Just make it android exclusive, fuck the apple ecoshitstem
Honestly I hate that everyone builds everything as a native app anyway. Just make it a webapp, everyone can use it and you don't have to install it!
Apple has slowly removed most necessary core features of progressive web apps, so that they are back to being as useful as a web page link.
It is a great strategy on android though
Oh I never realized that apple was that restrictive even for the general internet. Well fuck that noise.
Isn't it 99 USD? For a year.
Which is higher than every other platform
Amazon App Store also charges that much too, without taking into account the 1 free year you get
Its not just for publishing on the App Store: you cant sign your app without that paid developer account, and you can only install your own unsigned app temporarily. You need to pay them to use your own app.
Fortunately on macOS getting that verification is entirely optional, just that users will get a warning when they launch your app.