AI is turning Apple's app review process into a nightmare for synth developers

erikschoster

> Developing and releasing a VST plugin is simple. You set up a website, upload your installers, set a price, and you’re good to go. I don't disagree with the critique of Apple's policies, but boy this made me roll my eyes.

billyp-rva

I'm not sure what Apple can do here; Pandora's box is open and it won't be closed. It felt like there was a flood of app releases in the early 2010s during the gold rush. I can't even imagine it now.

rjh29

There is a surge of vibe coded apps in the iOS community. Some of them are good - generally by musicians or sound designers who couldn't code. Many are utter trash, designed by developers who have barely any musical taste and simply told Claude to make some glitchy reverb pedal or groovebox. They use AI to write the copy for the app store and leave the UI as default (navy with fixed width headers, often looking like more like a spreadsheet than a synth). Sometimes trying to charge as much as $30 for it. It's a scourge but on the upside, most of them have now got their dopamine fix and moved onto something else.

Juvination

I've been waiting about two weeks for the last review for my app, I got one rejection and that took 20 days. It's a bit of a bummer but there isn't anything I can do about it.

solarkraft

The title is too friendly to Apple. Sure the flood of apps is making their lives harder, but also remember that they choose to force everyone through this and you have to PAY them to do their job this badly.

seydor

I m waiting for weeks to just enroll in their developer program, that i have paid for. Are they deliberately stalling everything to stop people from putting more stuff in the app store? I m going to go ahead and release the android version and make sure to badmouth apple to their users. life is short

obayesshelton

Similar issue with shopify apps

hmokiguess

> My app was REJECTED from submission FOUR TIMES in row. Always same reason (eg. my app is “design spam” and “duplicates existing apps” and it is createed using “app generation template services”) as shown bellow in screenshots. Which is obvious nonsense. You can feel the entitlement across the room from the developer. They seem to be unable to conceive that outside of their bubble there can be a real case of AI spamming that same look and feel, even if they did it by heart. Looking at his work, it's clearly modelled after Serum (which even the article describes as "a sort of Serum 2 for iOS") so I am not sure why they think this suddenly deserves a white glove service here. The App Store is also flooded with Synth apps, so regardless of the UI being the trigger here, I would imagine the category itself has been flagged as spammy and now has a higher bar of entry. If anything I would use this as an opportunity to reskin and try to stand out, they're giving you a blueprint of what will perform better on the algorithm if you avoid that look if you think about it. Or just try an Alt Store.

floathub

Apple's app review process has always been a silly game. I have a music playing app, and every actual screenshot gets rejected in review for "displaying copyrighted content" (album art). And the terms of review say the screenshots must come from the app, not be mockups. So dumb. I have a fake music collection of fake artists and albums that I load to generate screenshots ... colossal waste of time.

NewsaHackO

>It was over a month of back-and-forth, so I threw my hands up and released it audio-only for now. What we will do is bundle the MIDI build into the binary so both AUv3s install. Oh, so they are trying to do a soft bait and switch; where an app developer makes an app, splits its functionality, and sells both on the app store. They hope that someone buys the first app, which is missing basic functionality, not realizing they have to buy a second app to get the additional expected features. Like if you buy a video converter app that doesn't let you convert to an MP4 unless you buy a second "MP4 version" video converter app. Scummy behavior, glad Apple blocked it.

nikanj

A company I'm familiar with had their app rejected for "App does not contain means to delete accounts" Then all subsequent ones were rejected "Developer provided test account stopped working" Logs show that the tester used the "delete my account" function.. As the only customer service available is an uncaring LLM, the only solution that worked was to keep the "Delete my account" button in the app, and make it a NOP on the server side.

bluegatty

Apple and Google are a mobile cartel, they need to be broken up. This is absurd. If people want the editorialized 'safety' of an App Store, they can use it, that's fine, but there's no reason to stop people from buying apps for their phone from wherever they want.

mattrighetti

Have just submitted two new apps last week and they’ve been published 2 days later. Updated them a couple of times this week and that also took around 2 days. Not sure if it’s because I have a good track record but I only had been rejected a couple of times and even then I just had to submit a screen recording of me playing with the app to make it pass the review process.

semiquaver

I love how poor the writing in this article is. It gives me hope that not everyone has switched to AI.

locallost

I am more interested in the fact so many people are spamming the app store. What are they hoping for actually? If you can write a prompt for it, anyone can do it. There's no value in an app like before. I think those times are over. Maybe the "democratization" of it will bring in fresh ideas. Maybe not. But anyway basically no one will make any money or have any success off these vibe coded apps.

im3w1l

In a land of commodified apps, the platform has all the power and the dev has none. Like at this point, they could up their cut to 90% of revenue. There would be an outcry and many devs would leave. But in the end getting even 10% of the revenue of an app you whipped together by telling claude to "make an app, no mistakes" is too good to refuse.

n8m8

Rare Apple W

JodieBenitez

IOS is such a dream for virtual instruments: Cheaper than desktop versions, portable, plenty of choice. But the web is getting better too. Plenty of excellent music apps there. The App Store is not the future and it feels good.

n8m8

Couldn’t help myself, asked Claude for the most iconic post complaining about developing Apple software every year since iOS came out. 2007 — John Gruber, "WWDC 2007 Keynote News" This was his reaction to Jobs telling developers to build web apps instead of real ones. Its best-known line: "If all you have to offer is a shit sandwich, just say it." 2008 — Fraser Speirs, "App Store: I'm Out" The battle lines were drawn when an Apple representative reviewing submissions for the App Store rejected a program called Podcaster for duplicating iTunes. Speirs then vowed never to write another iPhone app for the store "as currently constituted." Runner-up: the anger over the SDK's secrecy agreement (NDA), which Apple dropped in October after admitting it placed "too much of a burden" on iPhone developers. 2009 — Paul Graham, "Apple's Mistake" Graham wrote that the App Store is an ongoing karma leak. Pair it with Joe Hewitt quitting the Facebook iPhone app the same month: "I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process." 2010 — Lee Brimelow (Adobe), "Apple Slaps Developers in the Face" This was about rule 3.3.1, which banned apps built with cross-platform tools like Flash. Brimelow ended it with: Go screw yourself Apple. (coverage) 2011 — Readability's open letter to Apple "We believe that your new policy smacks of greed," wrote Rich Ziade, Readability's creator. Apple reversed itself within days. (coverage) 2012 — Marco Arment, "The Mac App Store's future of irrelevance" His target was the new sandboxing rules: "leaving is often a better option, or the only option, for the affected developers". Runner-up: Wil Shipley's essay arguing the Mac App Store needs paid upgrades. 2013 — Ken Case (Omni Group) on OmniKeyMaster (the weakest year) Omni tried to offer discounted upgrades to Mac App Store buyers and had to back down: "My apologies: I'm afraid we will not be able to offer upgrade pricing to our Mac App Store customers after all." (coverage) 2014 — Jared Sinclair, "A Candid Look at Unread's First Year" His sales numbers set off the "indie apocalypse" debate. Runner-up: Apple ordered PCalc's calculator widget removed while featuring it. Apple then backed down possibly due in part to the firestorm of press and social media criticism. 2015 — Bohemian Coding, "Leaving the Mac App Store" (Sketch) Gruber's verdict on it: "The Mac App Store is rotting, at least for productivity software." 2016 — Bogdan Popescu, "Dash and Apple: My Side of the Story" Apple shut his developer account. He published a recorded call in which they want me to write a blog post in order to restore my account. One caveat for your article: Apple said the account was linked to almost a thousand fraudulent reviews. 2017 — Matt Gemmell, "Damage" His thesis: "No company has done as much damage to the perceived value of software, and the sustainability of being an independent developer, as Apple." 2018 — The Developers Union open letter It asked Apple for free trials for apps and a "more reasonable revenue cut." (coverage) 2019 — Daniel Ek, "Time to Play Fair" (Spotify) Spotify's CEO compared Apple's rules to inviting you to a match on our ping-pong table and then forcing you to play blindfolded while we change the rules throughout the game. 2020 — DHH's Twitter thread about the Hey email app (archived on hey.com) "I will burn this house down myself, before I let gangsters like that spin it for spoils." Probably the most famous thread in this whole history. 2021 — Kosta Eleftheriou's thread on scam apps It opened with "The App Store has a big problem": copycat scam apps were outselling honest developers while Apple took its cut. (coverage) 2022 — Judgment call The most-seen post was Elon Musk's "Did you know Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their App Store?" (it got quickly tagged by Community Notes). For a working developer's complaint, use Alin Panaitiu's post about being rejected for being "too similar to a website". 2023 — Eric Migicovsky and Beeper Mini Beeper Mini brought iMessage to Android, and Apple kept blocking it. By late December Beeper gave up, with Canadian CEO Eric Migicovsky writing in a blog post that Beeper "can't win" against Apple. 2024 — Tim Sweeney's thread on the EU rules Apple's response to the EU's Digital Markets Act was, he wrote, "a devious new instance of Malicious Compliance", with plenty more "hot garbage" in it. (coverage) 2025 — David Smith, "The Forgotten Customer" "They aren't trying to win me over by being excellent; they are assuming my loyalty through strong-arm tactics and intransigence." Runner-up: the backlash to Apple's Liquid Glass redesign, as in this line collected by Michael Tsai: "Liquid Glass has killed my motivation and desire to develop anything for Apple platforms." 2026 (so far) — Marco Arment on App Review delays "App Store review delays are back to Shoemaker-era levels." Many blame a flood of AI-generated apps. That makes a neat bookend to 2008, which was also about waiting on App Review. (Mastodon) Runner-up: Jeff Johnson's "Small ways the App Store could be improved for developers".

0c3ca83

But wait, that's not all! There are so many more nightmares in store for you!