No one single day without an App rejected from the App Store. No matter whether you are a Giant like Google (Google Voice) or a small unknown developper with great apps (NinjaWords). Apple has a blackbox and even if the SDK is quite documented your app can be easily rejected. We just submitted our awesome iPhone app for AppsFire to Apple. We hope it will be accepted [we send them business so i hope it will be fine..]. But what if it does not?
We thought of a few alternatives and decided to share it with others. You never know.
1. Try again
Sometimes your app can be rejected for a stupid reason easy to fix (eg: you used an iPhone visual in your app which is forbidden). The team will let you know. Just fix it and try again...
2. Talk with Apple
Apple recently created a specific email adress for developpers so they can better communicate with Apple and optimize the approval process. Use it.
3. Go Browser
Web apps were there before the App Store. you can do pretty nifty things within the browser. Even Google is considering coming to the iPhone via the browser. Over time with HTML 5 browser based apps will be nearly as good as desktop apps. Apple can't block them
4. Go Jailbreak
Definitely not the best option because you won t enjoy the iTunes juice. But some app are doing very nice over there. Sometimes it's even better to start there. An app like TuneWiki would have been probably rejected from day 1 if they submitted it to the App Store. They gain massive traction in Cidya (the jailbreak app store) and could eventually by way of negociating clean agreements with majors submit successfully their app to Apple.
Bear in mind that also the Jailbreak community is about less than 10% of the total iPhone population. Read also this piece by Wired on the Jailbreak way
5. Go Android and Co
Yes, the App Store is THE Store. but not for long. Android and other app stores will soon be as big maybe bigger. So if your idea is good it s also good for other platforms. The only problem is that you'll have to code your app again since it's not the same framework. As a piece of advice if you want to build a big business, don't make it iPhone Specific
6. Go Fight..but good luck with that
It is highly likely that a rejected phone app will give food to the blogosphere. Use it. Maybe you'll manage to get some better attention from Apple. Like here
7. Hire a developper in the know
Working with Yann on Appsfire is a real pleasure. There are so many mistakes i would have made by myself. Not because he s a developper and i am not but because he went through the process of submitting an App several times. Actually i even believe there is room for a small independant service to help developpers get on board on the Appstore. Who's working on it?
8. Go Home
Getting approved is like an exam: you work a lot for it and still be out. This can be a definite energy/motivation killer. If you don't believe enough in your app, or if you are tired maybe it's time to give up. But first make sure you tried everything.
And like for all exams: make sure you are ready enough. Starting by reading this SDK and benchmarking yourself with already approved/rejected apps.
9. Make Steve a present
Offer him what he will never be able to buy - A PC
10. Go to an app group therapy
Given the numbers of rejected apps, a good way to treat that would be a nice group therapy. But you know what? Try those above before...
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