They kind of bury the lead here. They can't have their app on the appstore because:
" While we still updated our applications in time, Apple did not review them for the AppStore, and instead rejected them first for a crash (sigh!), and later for requiring UI changes, including showing a Save As panel for each generated file. Now this may not sound like much, this is a serious issue for a document scan application which easily generates hundreds of files in an hour, and thousands of files a day, with file names automatically generated, either thru counters, or advanced auto-id features, such as barcodes."
Even if Apple later took back the rejection I bet this was the last straw.
I also have my own experience with rejection: You used/included word Contacts in name of the app; this is a trademark of Apple. My app used word Contacts before apple renamed their AddressBook to Contacts.app on macOS. I used appeal with link to their list of trademarks. I am pointing out that humans do many errors and sometimes your app is in review for 2 weeks (2019) for no reason (minor update). Happened to me and the Yoink.app owner as well
Not trying to blame you at all for what happened, but for my benefit as a developer and for anyone else reading, did you ever apply for a trademark or consider it? I'd love to know the details of how that worked out if you did.
As a developer, the one thing that I do dislike about Apple, is the dismal state of their documentation on how to actually take advantage of all their platforms' features. I have to begrudgingly admit that their nemesis Microsoft has always been way ahead in that department.
> After releasing the Catalina Golden Master build to developers on October the 3rd, we immediately finished fixing any new crash and issue we could find over the weekend. In our opinion, leaving developer just four (4!) days over a weekend with a public release on October the 7th is not very professional. While we still updated our applications in time, Apple did not review them for the AppStore, and instead rejected them first for a crash (sigh!), [...]
Catalina had been available to the public for testing since like WWDC; unless these were late breaks only found in GM, it's a tough pill to swallow that these urgent bugs couldn't have been addressed before GM shipped.
Maybe, but prior to the "Golden Master" release are you really testing your stuff, or Apple's?
Leaving such a small window between Apple getting its act together with the GM, and a hard deadline for third parties to get their act together, is rough.
I'm not with theis company - my company also had major issues with Catalina. There were major bugs released in each beta. Several were fixed without any release notes mentioning so. We wasted several days of an engineers time tracking down an issue that was fixed in a new beta with no mention. Incredibly frustrating.
Apple's documentation is some of the worst most incomplete garbage I've ever had the displeasure of trying to read. When you literally need to go to third party people who just figured it out through sheer luck because features are fully undocumented and don't give tool tips, you've broken the user experience.
> and later for requiring UI changes, including showing a Save As panel for each generated file.
So, Apple found a crash, and instead of completing the review (this assumes they could have, and benefit of the doubt here, they could have), they didn't. They found and issue, flagged it, and sent it back. This means the developer had to do work, resubmit, and then have another issue found. Rather than work through everything, the reviewer found one thing, dinged the app, and moved on.
As a user, that means Apple is delaying apps longer than need be. Sure, fixing the crash is good, but I can't imagine they couldn't have reviewed the other parts of the app and said, "Fix the crash and this other two areas and you are good to go." That would mean a shorter turn around time, and as a user, I get a better product sooner.
> So, Apple found a crash, and instead of completing the review (this assumes they could have, and benefit of the doubt here, they could have), they didn't.
Yeah, the crash could have prevented them from completing the review.
> As a user, that means Apple is delaying apps longer than need be.
Meanwhile, according to another outrage, Apple is •not delaying releases enough* and rushing out buggy apps and operating systems.
I think their point was that the crash was because of the fact that:
1. Catalina had a lot of breaking changes, bugs and crashes that caused the apps to crash - which required special attention just for Catalina
2. They were given only 4 days to fix the mess that Catalina resulted in.
The last straw for me was that they rejected a minor app update because they claimed my app crashed on a not-yet-released OS update. I literally could not install the OS that had the issue, they would provide me with zero additional information (not even a log), and they would not allow my minor update to get into the store. I deleted it from the store that same afternoon.
If you insist on using journalism jargon, why not use it in its intended, original form? I for one am not a language purist, you can change expressions any way you see fit but... I mean... The expression is still bury the lede.
Not everyone on the internet is American. "Lead" is perfectly decent British English for the beginning of an article and always has been. (Source: I'm a former UK magazine editor.)
Asking for the "Save As" panel just shows how amateurish the reviewers are. It sounds like the app already worked like that before: batch generation of files through scanning, but now maybe the assigned reviewer noticed this requirement in the guideline (or it's a new guideline) and thought "Oh no, one item missed, and since I'm a simple automaton I'll have to reject this app!'.
" While we still updated our applications in time, Apple did not review them for the AppStore, and instead rejected them first for a crash (sigh!), and later for requiring UI changes, including showing a Save As panel for each generated file. Now this may not sound like much, this is a serious issue for a document scan application which easily generates hundreds of files in an hour, and thousands of files a day, with file names automatically generated, either thru counters, or advanced auto-id features, such as barcodes."
Even if Apple later took back the rejection I bet this was the last straw.