

Apple's Joswiak: Wundrbar is Very Special - garbowza
http://blog.wundrbar.com/2009/03/apples-joswiak-wundrbar-is-very-special.html

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bumbledraven
Title is misleading: it made me think Joswiak had specifically mentioned
Wundrbar. A somewhat more accurate title would be: Wundrbar's experience with
the iPhone app approval process.

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tlrobinson
I think Apple's statistics are probably highly misleading.

I doubt that 95% of all submissions are approved. That's probably 95% of all
_apps_ are _eventually_ approved, perhaps after several rejections.

The 98% statistic probably means of the _submissions_ that are approved, 98%
take < 1 week.

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crux
While Apple's app approval process has been well-established as opaque and
cruelly arbitrary, no one can be surprised that this app, of all apps, should
have taken a long time to review. Almost by definition it steps on an awful
lot of toes; I'm sure that if Apple has, as I think they've been documented,
an interest in preserving the use space of their own apps AS WELL AS certain
high-powered partners, then surely no one at Wundrbar can be surprised that
their app, which in many ways is nothing more than a series of front-ends to
other people's data, might have raised more than one eyebrow.

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jacoblyles
Has anyone else noted that his name bears an uncanny resemblance to a blend of
"Jobs" and "Wosniak"?

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tlrobinson
Yes. And they seem to call him "Joz" = "Jobs" + "Woz"

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thingsilearned
Wundrbar is like 70 apps in 1. Maybe they were testing each app separately?

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physcab
When I submitted my app, Apple actually called _ME_. Kind of ridiculous, but
it was pretty cool. They were super friendly and wanted me to make some quick
changes before approval, which I did, and it was rather seamless experience.

The code signing ritual...now that was a different story.

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kortina
"Meanwhile, for individual developers, the process disproportionately favors
development of so-called 'crap apps.' Why should developers invest time in
developing complex apps that might take months to review, when they could
develop simple apps of limited utility that are more likely to get into the
App Store in a day or two?"

This point seems spot on. Has anyone else been afraid to devote months to an
app for the same reason? Seems like a scary investment given that you will
just be subject to Apple's whims indefinitely.

~~~
gcheong
My "crap app" got rejected for being of "minimal functionality" even though it
duplicates the functionality of a physical device found in many restrooms in
Japan, so it seems Apple is indiscriminately applying their policies
regardless of application quality, leading to some making it through and
others not. Case in point:

[http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/03/16/apple-rejects-
free-...](http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/03/16/apple-rejects-free-iphone-
tool-for-artists-because-of-minimal-user-functionality/)

I would hardly call this as having "minimal functionality". Yet Apple thinks
so. But neither I nor Apple should have that call beyond apps that are
illegal, overly resource intensive or malicious. The market should be able to
decide. This behavior hinders development across the board, especially when
you have no insight into why an app is rejected or what it will take to get it
approved. Will Shipley has a great post on his blog about this very issue:

[http://wilshipley.com/blog/2008/09/iphone-app-store-let-
mark...](http://wilshipley.com/blog/2008/09/iphone-app-store-let-market-
decide.html)

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mattmaroon
Wait, I thought only 96% of apps got approved at all.

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tlrobinson
96% get approved, of that 96%, 98% supposed get approved within a week.

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henning
Is it unreasonable for me to think that 98% of them should be approved in 1
business day?

~~~
cpr
Probably.

Even at some steady state, an app has to come into their queue and be assigned
to someone. Each of those folks is probably already busy. And the approval
process requires going through all the major features of the app, checking for
UI gaffes, profanity, etc.

So even if they had a perfect process, you'd imagine it'd take two or three
days.

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siong1987
I think this is mostly because wundrbar has similar functions as the new
SpotLight in iPhone OS 3.0.

~~~
tlrobinson
Huh? Spotlight lets you search your music, mail, notes, calendars, and a few
other things stored on your phone. Wundrbar lets you search various services
on the internet. There's zero overlap, AFAIK.

