I wanted to make an app. A one stop shop for my friend, family, and followers. I saw that AppMakr was having a promotion through Guy Kawasaki. It’s usually $199 but with the code “GUYK” it was knocked down to $49! I jumped on it!
These are the feeds that I had setup:
- Main Blog
- Twitter
- DailyBooth
- YouTube
- 43 Things
- Blip.fm
- Bookmarks
- Calendar
- Cork’d
- Facebook
- Flickr
- Foursquare
- Google Reader
- Gun Blog
- Last.fm
- Posterous
- Qik
- Raptr
- Running Blog
- Original Personal Blog
- Tumblr
- Vimeo
- Weather
- Wish List
- Yelp
These are all my original content too!
Well, I build my app (check it out here: http://bit.ly/4uYbMP)
It’s not very pretty but it does have virtually every social media network that I am on and post fairly regularly to.
I submitted my app but didn’t hear about the status for a few weeks. I logged back in to see if there was any new news and I saw a message saying it was rejected. So I logged back into the support side to see if there was any news. I never got an email notifying me it was rejected.
Here is word for word my conversation with AppMakr so far (copy/pasted):
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We have good news and we have bad news - bad news is that that Apple has rejected your App (direct email from Apple is posted below). However, the good news is that you can rebuild for $49 and try again.
Also, here are some suggestions on how to best address the issue:
Try to make your app appeal to a broader audience by diversifying the feeds or content.
Your app is saved in your dashboard so don’t worry, you don’t have to completely rebuild your app - you can simply make the changes and republish the build for $49!
Happy AppMaking!!
-Ryan from the AppMakr Support Team
PS - In addition to the free email support, you can open a phone support ticket anytime at www.AppMakr.com/support for a nominal fee.
support@AppMakr.com
twitter: @AppMakr_______________________________________________________
We’ve reviewed your application Mike P. and have determined that this application is not appropriate for the App Store because it is intended for a limited audience.
If you would like to share it with friends and family, we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.
If you believe that you can add additional user functionality to Mike P. so that it can be accessible to a wider audience, we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.
Regards,
iPhone Developer Program
Jan-25 2010 18:02.
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Me:
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Ryan,
I am beyond upset about this. There was no warning that this would even be a possibility. I also did not get an email, I just decided to check my AppMakr account and saw the app was rejected.
In the email from Apple, it says this:
“If you would like to share it with friends and family, we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.”
How would I have known that? I never got access to that. Can you explain to me how that would work? I paid for your service (which was never provided) because I don’t know how to operate in the iPhone SDK.
Ryan, you also say yourself that I should try to “appeal to a broader audience by diversifying the feeds or content.” Did you see how many feeds I had? Did you see how broad my content was?
I had 25 feeds. And the content of those feeds were quite wide ranging. There were feeds on photos, on my personal blog, on a my running blog, on my wishlist, my local weather, on my videos, on my current location…
Maybe you are saying that app approval comes down to how many twitter followers I have. As of this very moment I have 359 followers. How many do you have? 657. That’s not a whole lot more. Especially considering that I am just a random dude and you are a company that [supposedly] provides a service that appeals to millions of people.
I’m not trying to pick a fight with you directly but I don’t let people steal my money. Apple may have been the ones to reject me but you have stood by them when you should have given me the option to refund my money.
How would you suggest that I try my app again? I don’t see how your comment of “Try to make your app appeal to a broader audience by diversifying the feeds or content.” can help me when I already have such a diverse feed set.
I expect a quick email back at least letting me know that you received this. Thank you and I hope that we can settle this quickly.
Feb-01 2010 19:25.
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So, I’m waiting to hear back from them. What do you think? Was I too harsh? I don’t want to sound mean but I really don’t think they deserve to keep my money for doing nothing. I spent a lot of time working on this from making the graphics for the app myself (even though they are pretty minimal) and finding and organizing feeds.
Here are screen caps of my feeds with their custom icons.(See the whole set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scrappapervlog/sets/72157623206629975/)
What do you think?
