Hi guys, I have had an app store rejection on an app that was approved 3 times last year, They first rejected it last friday due to screenshots, which I fixed ,Then it was rejected because of this. Guideline 4.2.2 - Design We noticed that your app's main functionality is to market your service, with limited or no user-facing interactive features or functionality. Apps that are primarily marketing materials or advertisements are not appropriate for the App Store. Please see attached screenshots for details. Next Steps We encourage you to review your app concept and incorporate different content and features that are in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines. We understand that there are no hard and fast rules to define useful or entertaining, but Apple and Apple customers expect apps to provide a really great user experience. Apps should provide valuable utility or entertainment, draw people in by offering compelling capabilities or content, or enable people to do something they couldn't do before or in a way they couldn't do it before. Guideline 5.3.2 - Legal Also, your app includes a contest but it does not: - Include official rules for the contest within the app, which is required. - Indicate that Apple is not involved in any way with the contest or sweepstakes. - Enforce an app age rating of 17+. Next Steps It is necessary to: - Include official rules of the contest in the app - Include an explicit statement in the contest or sweepstakes rules specifying that Apple is not a sponsor. - Enforce an age rating of 17+. I then added an about us button and took the competition out, it was then rejected because Guideline 4.2.2 - Design We noticed that your app's main functionality is to market your service, with limited or no user-facing interactive features or functionality. Apps that are primarily marketing materials or advertisements are not appropriate for the App Store. Next Steps We encourage you to review your app concept and incorporate different content and features that are in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines. We understand that there are no hard and fast rules to define useful or entertaining, but Apple and Apple customers expect apps to provide a really great user experience. Apps should provide valuable utility or entertainment, draw people in by offering compelling capabilities or content, or enable people to do something they couldn't do before or in a way they couldn't do it before. I have about around 75 apps in both stores and most of them are simple apps, which are basically there websites made into apps, so most of my apps are similer to the one above, the issue i have is can they approve an app 3 times and then reject the same app, I have appealed and im waiting for response, Have any of you guys been through this and can you give me some pointers to how to fix it, the new update of the above app was to include push services. Thanks Sean

Its a tricky one. I think the whole apple approval process is very subjective and you've caught a reviewer who is not consistent with others. The old advice used to be to add a quiz, or add anything that uses phone features. Push is a good example, but you did that and it got rejected. People also used to say that if all else fails, pull it and submit it again a few weeks later. I once developed an app for a pub, it was rejected, changed the name, resubmitted it and it got through! Might be worth pointing out that your app adds value and has an existing user base and you are improving on that? Truth is I don't think anyone can say what will definitively work.

I had an app in the App Store for three years and several updates. I updated it in January.....no problem. I updated earlier this month......rejected. All of the sudden, my artwork looked too much like registered trademarks. It was an Apple reviewer three years ago that guided me through getting my app accepted in the first place. I protested and they didn't want to hear it. I changed my artwork and it wasn't good enough. I had to remove the artwork totally and create an entire new logo. What really irked me was that my app has been in the store for three years and several updates and there was never a problem. Seems like changes are coming....again! Dave

Thanks guys, i will wait for results of appeal and then start adding stuff, see if that makes any difference, will post updates. Sean

Ugh- I feel your pain! Last year I started looking into android - as this stuff drove me nuts. I hope it resolves. So irksome.

Apple are now rejecting web apps and pushing those developers that make webview apps with minimal native functionality towards HTML5 apps. From Apple: https://developer.apple.com/reference/webkit/wkwebview Starting in iOS 8.0 and OS X 10.10, use WKWebView to add web content to your app. Do not use UIWebView or WebView. ============================================== From Apple: 4. 2 Design: Minimum Functionality (iOS) Design – 4.2 Your app provides a limited user experience as it is not sufficiently different from a mobile browsing experience. As such, the experience it provides is similar to the general experience of using Safari. Including iOS features such as push notifications, Core Location, and sharing do not provide a robust enough experience to be appropriate for the App Store. Next Steps Please revise your app to provide a more robust user experience by including additional native iOS functionality. If you cannot – or choose not to – revise your app to be in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines, you may wish to build an HTML5 web app instead. You can distribute web apps directly on your web site; the App Store does not accept or distribute web apps. HTML5 is the major new version of HTML and enables audio and video to play natively in the browser without requiring proprietary plug-ins. Using HTML5, web apps can look and behave like native iPhone and iPad apps, and using HTML5's Offline Application Cache, a web app can work even when the device is offline. With web apps, you have flexibility to deliver as much or as little functionality as you desire. To get started with iPhone or iPad web apps, please review the Safari Client-Side Storage and Offline Applications Programming Guide. For a description of the HTML elements and attributes you can use in Safari on iPhone, check out Safari HTML Reference: Introduction. ===========================================================

This is a nightmare for me, as most of my apps already in both stores (around 70) are sourced from the clients websites, with other functions added, this means that im not gonna be able to update any of them. bracing myself for a lot of problems lol. Any suggestions for added functions using inbuilt apple functions (except push and quiz) Thanks Sean

It is a big problem that the plugins that can add more native functions have not been updated. In the meantime, we have to use all the available plugins that make the app look and feel native. Try adding camera, print, save to contacts, action sheets, alert menus, context menus, in-app forms, login, basically every plugin that still work - and cross your fingers.

I just got an update approved for one of my iOS apps that most screens point to the customers web page. I do however have a "call us" button that opens the phone and a driving directions button that opens maps. Also, a couple HTML pages that are copies of a couple of the website pages that do not normally change. Dave

it is luck of the draw as all said above, mine had a call,email,text,find us.pdfs and push notifications. Sean

Hello Sean Do you find solution to be accepted by Apple ? Steph

Yes i added more functions and changed the layout round and it got accepted