Few know that iTweetReply [App Store] was ready and submitted to Apple’s App Store on the 9th of June – More then four weeks before it was released on the App Store. In this post I’m going to discuss what we saw from Apple while waiting for approval.

iTweetReply is a rather unique app in that it’s always talking to the iTweetReply server; we can see when it’s being used, and a few little details about user actions, connection times, unread tweets etc. A few days after first submission to the App Store, we saw a connection to the server from an unknown user – Presumably an Apple approval agent/tester. These hits (with an IP registered as belonging to Apple Inc) had blank twitter login details – showing the tester had opened the app, gotten to the login screen and gone no further. This gave us high hopes for a quick reviewal, amazed that Apple had looked at the app in just days – being our first submission to the App Store and having heard so many stories about apps taking “Months” to approve.

Our hopes were dashed when, on the 13th of June (Four days after submission) we received a generic, canned email from an Apple robot, stating that the app was taking an unexpected length of time to review. (picture below).

The unexpected time email

We assumed the delay was due to Apple’s push infrastructure being as of yet unable to cope with widespread use – This proved not to be the case only days later, as push-enabled apps created by other developers began to make their way into the Store.

Apple remained silent until quite some time later. On the 24th of June, an email arrived in our inbox stating that they had tried to contact us via phone, but been unsuccessful – providing a number for us to call them on for more information.

Please call Apple email.

I called the number provided by Apple on the 28th of June at 2AM Australian Eastern Standard Time – and was given a short, simple, to the point answer when I asked why it had not yet been approved. They wanted me to remove the 1 Infinite Loop written on the envelope shown on the iTweetReply splash screen.

Yes, they rejected iTweetReply based on an address shown on an envelope for 2-3 seconds upon opening the app.

Updated Splash Screen

Original Splash Screen

We resubmitted the app with the modified splash screen you see on the right later that day.

A few days after this second submission, on the 30th of June, the server logged another connection from an Apple IP; This time the tester had opened the app, entered twitter login details and sent one tweet.

Then, on the 10th of July – two and a half weeks since second submission, and almost a month to the day since the first – an email appeared out of the blue in our inbox, blazing “Your App has been approved for sale in the App Store”.

This experience has revealed some unexpected, rather pedantic factors within the Apple approval system, and leaves many questions – starting with “If they had the app on a device within days, what took up the remaining two weeks?”

My personal guess is that once an app passes the initial technical test, it must be approved by multiple other levels from legal (to prevent illicit apps) to, well, God knows. If nothing else it has highlighted the need for a far more transparent approval process – Come on Apple, is it so hard to give us at least a quasi-detailed description of the approval process?

I hope this article proves useful to you in some way – Not all App Store approvals are nightmares, but some of the rules can be quite… interesting. (Really? an address?).