Contrary to several posts I have read, my contact with Apple during AppStore review was all pleasant. Leaving aside the fact that my Rivals app did accidentally use private API (which was not intentional), Apple was kind enough to pinpoint the API calls so that I could remove them and rewrite the app a bit.

At the initial upload I was informed that 95% of the app reviews take two weeks. So I was prepared for two full weeks of review and possibly multiples of that. But even though I got rejected and had to be reviewed twice the whole process was exactly two weeks long with a 3 day development gap in between. Below is my complete status history for the Rivals app:

Is the approval necessary at all?

From a developer’s perspective

Yes and No. It is nothing to be afraid of (as I initially was), but it does slow bug fixing down a bit.

But considering all in all – the big market Apple puts at our hands, the low commission fee, good tools for marketing and monitoring thereof, not even mentioning the platform of iPhone/iPod touch, I have to say that it is small price to pay for it.

And when you think about it from Apple’s perspective for a while – I do believe, being the first to do such a thing, Apple did have to jump through hoops of contracts and legal mumbo-jumbo to give all iPhone developers even the freedom they currently have. I am speaking of thing such as the long-forbidden turn-by-turn navigation which was probably held back by Google for it’s own Android platform (sorry if I am mistaken) and quite possibly the rumble feedback royalties which WE do not have to pay. If you do read through all the contracts you agreed upon and after the enrollment you could come to the same conclusion – AppStore review process is necessary most of all to ensure Apple can fulfill it’s contracts with third parties which otherwise would have fallen to all the developers.

From user’s perspective

Definitely YES: even if Apple does not have the manpower to thoroughly inspect all apps for security and misbehavior, I believe that they do have tools to reverse engineer and otherwise monitor for forbidden API (and other) calls that could potentially harm your device or your data.