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Tip of my hat to the Apple Review Team because they had found a bug which I cannot replicate plus I can’t decrypt the crash report they gave me. Even do, I re-read over and over again the guideline that is supposed to teach how to read the crash report.
I really wish Apple would have a better crash report and I don’t seem to be the only one. This quite annoying to me because I spend a lot of time researching, rewriting code, and testing for possible bugs. I try to be as meticulous as possible when doing my work so I can make a bugs free applications but the information provided by them is quite useless.
Previously, my application got rejected for reasons not involved with possible bugs in the application.
The first time, it got rejected because I didn’t write an extensive testing documentation up to Apple standards. Apple doesn’t provide any documentation or example on how to write a testing documentation to their standards so I will have to create one on my own and cross my fingers.
The second time the apple reviewer couldn’t understand why I did provide a section to control the music on the device.I explained that I found that users don’t wish to exit the application, set up the music and then return to the application. This section was added for the convenience of the user. Personally, I don’t understand why I was asked this question. It doesn’t break any of the guidelines.
The third time, I was ask “In addition, what is the purpose of the location background mode in the app? Does location need to be on persistently while the app is in the background?”. It is a jogging application. It needs to record the location of the user even when phone is locked. It needs to indicate the user when it gets the awards. It needs to keep the timer running so knows when to tell the user when to do each exercise. It needs to be keep the application alive when the device is locked. I guess that the short explanation I added when submitting the application was no good enough. So, I will have to add some Alert box or section to make it clear.
While this happens, I test many application in the app store such as FallOut Shelter which is full of bugs and crash all the time. I talk with other iOS developers and the picture I get is that only those application coming from big corporations are allowed to be reviewed “lightly” while individual programmers are attack like crazy.
So based on all this, I decided to go back to the drawing board and start everything again from zero regardless on how annoying is that in hopes that I can pass the Apple review.
The good thing is that I, my family and friend keep using my application successfully. I am getting nice feedback from them and I am happy that they are using it successfully. I installed them on their devices directly TestFlight only allow me to share when review pass successfully and because some of them have iOS7.
Since I am a thinker, more than a whiner, here are some ideas for the Apple Team Reviewers:
- Run the application in debug and record the logs when the application fail them. Your crash report is quite useless and people add logs in their program for the purpose on finding the bugs easier.
- Explain why you asking your questions. Questions no related with bugs give the idea that you are trying to come up with excuses to not approve an application.
It is very rare to me to write this kind of articles where I am angry. Normally, I prefer to never write something negative on the Internet; however, the Apple Review Team makes me feel like I am hopeless in my hopes to publish my application.
© 2015, Alejandro G. Carlstein Ramos Mejia. All rights reserved.
