alt Hacker News> My app was REJECTED from submission FOUR TIMES in row. Always same reason (eg. my app is “design spam” and “duplicates existing apps” and it is createed using “app generation template services”) as shown bellow in screenshots. Which is obvious nonsense.
You can feel the entitlement across the room from the developer. They seem to be unable to conceive that outside of their bubble there can be a real case of AI spamming that same look and feel, even if they did it by heart.
Looking at his work, it's clearly modelled after Serum (which even the article describes as "a sort of Serum 2 for iOS") so I am not sure why they think this suddenly deserves a white glove service here.
The App Store is also flooded with Synth apps, so regardless of the UI being the trigger here, I would imagine the category itself has been flagged as spammy and now has a higher bar of entry.
If anything I would use this as an opportunity to reskin and try to stand out, they're giving you a blueprint of what will perform better on the algorithm if you avoid that look if you think about it.
Or just try an Alt Store.
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I mean they are entitled to it in a way. You pay Apple 99 Dollars a year to be able to distribute your apps on the store. Why should apple care if it is design spam or a duplicate of an existing app? Most of the apps available in the store would check those boxes too.
Everyone is entitled to run whatever the hell they want on their own device. End of.
“Just try an alt store” is a condescendingly flippant comment - there is near zero market for iOS alt stores and most people in most countries have no access either.
My above comment is not an excuse for design spam. The design spam rule is necessary. Your feedback is not.
Synths have never been a high profit business on iOS. And small earners are not a priority for Apple review. There’s a business case for not being bothered with most indie apps.
To suggest there’s categorically no room for innovation or value add with new synth products is just ignorant though.
Is entitlement always a problem? Maybe if apple didn't try their best to hold a monopoly on app distribution for a large percentage of the mobile userbase, developers wouldn't feel frustrated in this regard. Who's apple to decide which apps aren't allowed because they "duplicate existing apps", and how fairly is that even applied? Are calculators allowed on the app store? It seems awfully like they duplicate existing functionality.
Ok but now explain why there are tons of absolute trash vibe coded apps that barely do anything in the app store?
I wouldn't describe it as entitlement. I think one of the issues I would have if I was in this situation is that the developer membership is paid for and the service provider (Apple) is actively refusing to let you engage in part of what you did pay for (the ability to publish apps on the App Store). You can bet that Apple won't give you a refund of that membership fee.