Reasons For iOS Application Rejections During Review Process

Developing an application see it live in Appstore is a good feel. However, there are many apps which get rejected by Appstore during the review process. So its necessary for all the iOS app developers to check whether our app meets all the requirements suggested in Apple Appstore guidelines. As an iOS app development company, we use to submit regularly apps to the Appstore.

So now am not going to explain all the guidelines, because Apple has done this already with the clear documentation. Check the link below

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

I am just going to share the experience with some of my projects and the app rejection reasons. Please note that it’s not a huge mistake if our app got rejected by app store reviewers. We just have to rework on the reason for which it has been rejected or provide them with valid reasons.

Note: We are not disclosing the project names as per company’s terms and conditions with our clients.

1) First Project

It’s a location-based project using iBeacons.

Rejected Reason:

This application is enabled with the  background modes like:

1.Audio, Airplay, and pictures in picture

2.Location update,

3.Uses Bluetooth LE accessory

4.Background fetch

App store guys rejected this application because they want the reason for enabling these background modes.

Approval Steps :

We replied the reasons for why those modes got enabled.

Got Approved.

2) Second Project

An IoT project, where we can control your door locks by your smartphones without the need for physical keys.

Rejected Reason:

We have provided the credentials to the app store team but wanted to test it with the real hardware and see how it works. So they asked us to ship the hardware to their place.

Approval process:

Since shipping the hardware takes too much time, we sent them a video of the app working with a hardware explaining end to end process.

Got Approved.

3) Third Project

It’s an application where we can control the street lights from our smartphone.

Rejected Reason:

We have provided the credentials to the app store team with the username, password and vision URL

App got rejected because of the given credential is not valid to proceed with the app.

Approval Steps:

We need to be more specific  while sending the credentials because the password contains space in between

We replied them that the password contains space in between and also we have provided few more login credentials to them.

Got Approved.

4) Fourth Project

Its an application which tells about the latest activities, news, details of one of the multinational automotive manufacturer in an event.

Rejection Reason:

Overall application UI and data presented to the users are same for all the users. So Sign in should not be mandatory.

Approval Steps:

Instead of showing Sign in as the necessary screen to see the features of the application, we redesigned the UI and placed the Sign in the screen where the user really needs to Sign in. Because in few screens user needs to send data to a server which is user specific. After making this change we uploaded new build.

Got Approved. But this time something different happened to us, After getting approved they rejected our app for some another reason which I have mentioned below.

Rejection Reason:

The app should not be used mainly for marketing purpose. If any of the application is done for their brand name, without effective UI reviewers will reject it.

Approval Steps:

We replied that this application is not only for marketing purpose, we have push notification features, latest news, activities and interactive UI like selfie screen.

Got Approved.

Final words on Reasons why your app can be rejected by App Store

As I said before, app getting rejected from the app store is not a big mistake. It’s my small experience while uploading an app to The app store, so I have shared this with you all. In future, you should not face the same problem while uploading.Testing is more important before uploading an app to app store.

Suppose you are developing an app for any particular upcoming events and you need your app to get upload in a quick time, we have “expedite” review option – means (Just explain to app store reviewers about the importance of the app which you have uploaded and about the upcoming event).If we try to cheat them our application will be rejected permanently.

Related Read:

1) 15 Mistakes To Avoid When Developing An App

2) 5 Things a successful developer knows and you should too

3) Mobile App Development Lifecycle- Journey of App from Development to App Store