There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize the app store review process for but this isn't one of them.
Apple is protecting their users and the overall browse experience by enforcing consistency in listings.
Your app's screenshots don't really show in the first three screens when they really should, these are the ones that will show up in search, at least until we can add full banners w/ iOS 27.
There are all sorts of creative ways you could layer in the paper aspect behind a device mockup across two screens which would both show your app and its paper output.
Perhaps have the paper on a desk and the phone at an angle on top of it, showing the screens.
Remember you don't have to explain what's where on the paper, just communicate its value and that your app is the way the user gets to it.
Interesting that the comments are almost unanimously in favor of Apple on this one.
I suspect the blog post was an attempt at viral marketing for the app. It worked in some sense, as it’s been on places like the HN front page where this app would normally never be discussed. I’m skeptical that it converts to app downloads, but it might be helping their SEO if it gets shared across the internet enough.
Frustrating for those of us baited into reading it
"The majority of the screenshots should highlight the app’s main features and functionality. Note that splash and login screens are generally not considered to show the app in use."
I agree with the feedback. Fix your screenshots (and whatever else is clearly not in line with app store guidelines).
Exactly. I think this may be a trap of solo development without external feedback. You can easily logic your way down a rabbit hole, and without a second set of eyes to call you out, you end up building something that makes perfect sense to you but is completely alien to an uninvested person.
Except in this case for this app you’re simply complaining that your app is rejected on “being ai”. I am also on team Apple, as I have no idea what this app actually does.
It actually sounds like you pretty much got it, except for #4. The intention was to show that you can use free text to write a cadence, there was the blue writing caret to indicate that. But it might be too subtle.
And for #6, that's how the idea actually started. I asked myself "what would happen if I prompted myself like an AI?" and it turns out, it was a great experience.
Two of six screenshots show the app. So the rejection fits the rules and is easy to understand. I often agree with complaints that Apple's rejections are unclear or problematic, but this isn't one of those cases.
And I'm kind of confused by these screenshots as well, since there are lines between them, as if they're one screenshot. And the labels over the screenshots are nonsensical and graphically glitched.
Looking at what is on the website and in the App Store, I still don’t have a good understanding of what this app even does. It prints something based on your calendar and some self-help prompts?
App Store rules aside, since this app has no free trial, it should be easier for a potential customer to understand what this app is attempting to be.
It definitely has a free trial, and yeah it prints 3 tools:
* a timeline which pulls in your calendar (you can use this to timebox as well as timetrack.)
* a daily list of prompts, which are scheduled using recur rules (which you can generate using natural language.) a prompt is useful for lots of things, which is the hard part of explaining it
* a list of your reminders for the reminders app, which can also work like a lighter version of prompts and/or todos.
Basically this app combines digital and paper planning and journaling into one page that's easier to carry and more useful than anything else (imo.)
These are so much more clear. The first image shows the core concept that this generates printable schedules to go on A4 paper, and the very next images shows the print dialog in the app itself. Instantly, I know what this does. Apple pushed you towards a much better app pitch page! I'm interested! This is a really neat idea.
Tangential, but I work at a company making POS systems so we end up with a lot of weird knowledge about receipt printers. Past ~year or so, I've set up a little web service at home that prints out my calendar on a receipt printer near my coffee maker early in the morning so while I'm getting up and still groggy, I have a little schedule for the day ready to skim over. By far, my favourite weekend project ever. A couple weeks ago I got it printing out a sudoku puzzle (just baaaarely fits on 80mm thermal paper) on weekend mornings! If you could somehow get this rendering the templates it prints out in ESC/P byteslop (it's a confusing standard) in addition to rasterized documents, that could be neat! In terms of cost-to-print, muuuuch cheaper for a daily-use thing. The main thermal printer companies have iOS libraries you can drop into your app, or you can just send the bytes directly to it, netcat style. Always surprised that just works... sometimes.
The live store version is the initial app, i.e. those screenshots are the ones to be replaced by the ones in the blog post.
I agree the old first image (with the hands pulling out the page) could be better (in terms of clarity) than what I am going with for the new launch (just the plan next to a phone.) My thinking was the new one being a bit more vague to catch someone's eye as they browse, so they stop and look.
Thermal printers are way too niche I think, plus the PFAS exposure on that paper is supposed to be insane, and aren't they much smaller plus harder to write on with a pen?
I personally think the ones you have on there right now are great! The hand pulling the schedule out of the printer 100% describes the cool thing your app does over other journaling/calendar apps! You need a printer to fully benefit from it, so it makes sense to show one.
I think apple has an issue with the lack of screenshots in the new images, which in the current version are present and self-explanatory. The second one being a screenshot of the print dialog, confirms the way this app works. In terms of clarity, you already nailed it in my book. Getting folks to stop and think is easier with an obvious face-blast of "hey!! this does X cool thing" as long as the people that like X exist (they do, source: me) versus trying to capture people with "hmmm... what does this mean?"... the reality is that only YOU care about your app. Being curious is a time investment you're hoping other people make. Throw 'em a bone with "the cool thing" right away.
I will say, I love the "best X at Y film festival"-esque laurel branch award on the first image in the new set. "1000+ agendas printed" comes off as a bit self-deprecating in a fun way that is endearing. I am slightly worried that might come off negatively in this comment, but I genuinely think it's cute, and made me smile. An app with a focus on shaping your mindset should celebrate the little wins!
And yeah, thermal printers are niche haha, just tossing it out there. I am simply fuelled by lubricious sheen of PFAS coursing through my veins.
AYY! That's kick ass! I hope you don't mind, but I may need to use your comment as proof for my partner as to why it's not weird to have a homelab receipt printer heh
For what it's worth, I haven't seen any significant increase in the app review times, contrary to what the article suggests. My app updates are normally reviewed within 24 hours, rarely 48; just as Apple promises. Not sure if they hired more reviewers, introduced more automation, or did anything else, but they are keeping up well enough.
Our app goes through regular updates via app submission and has taken less than two days past couple months. They must be going off reputation score after initial acceptance.
I once wrote a similar blog post when Apple rejected one of my games for bogus reasons.
Then out of frustration I deleted the submission and re-submitted with no changes except a new version number - that one was approved.
Deleted the blog post lol.
Over the following years I would learn that the App Store review process is random. It depends on who you get. Sometimes the reviewer seems mistaken about things and reject it, and on the other end sometimes they approve a build that has bugs, as if they didn't test it at all.
One time a reviewer accurately caught iPad issues. Apple reviewers love iPad. Make sure your app works on all modern versions.
Also once you get approved the first time, that app will usually get easily approved after that.
For games: They are very unlikely to play through a whole game and find bugs later on (a problem IMO), but they are more likely to use surface level menus and things on a regular app, so in some ways it can be easier to get a faulty game approved where regular apps are held to higher standards.
I know it's their job, but gotta feel for these app reviewers who must spend day after day reviewing ai generated apps. The only way to prevent this is to gatekeep that developer license with a higher base fee. Of course the review process was painful before, but it's only gotten more clogged and opaque.
Pour one out for anyone whose job has pivoted to reviewing ai output, science journals, literary journals, teachers, OSS maintainers.
It's posts like these that make me very unempathetic to developers who complain about Apple. I'm looking at the screenshots, and I can't understand what the app does nor how the new screenshots are representative of app functionality. However, despite having unclear screenshots, the developer blames Apple's malice when they just want to maintain a standard for users. For many of these developers, Apple is just a bully that stands in the way of them from scamming users.
The consequence of bad screenshots is nobody will download the app, which is a fate shared by about 80% of apps anyway.
Scammers certainly aren't the ones complaining, they have no emotional attachment to their apps and they're following steps designed to satisfy a superficial review.
> Digging deeper, 9to5Mac found a public GitHub repository containing instructions for a Cursor agent to create simple, vibe-coded apps that serve as fronts for the betting platforms.
Sorry, rather the word "scamming", I should have used the word "user-hostile". I don't think Facebook is scamming users, but as it stands Apple is in the way from them using every device api to siphon every possible inch of data from users.
It's exactly these kinds of developers who shout the loudest that Apple is being unfair, when all Apple is preventing them from doing is taking advantage of users.
> > Issue: The screenshots do not show the actual app in use in the majority of the screenshots. Screenshots should highlight the app’s core concept to help users understand the app’s functionality and value.
This is the first thing everyone learns when they look up the requirements for App Store screenshots.
You got it wrong, but they provided a clear and actionable path to fix it.
I’m with Apple on this one. The requirements are clear and you missed them the first time. It’s an easy fix. I don’t see why this warrants a clickbait blog post, other than to try to generate some viral outrage marketing for this app.
You aren't showing your app. You are just showing your marketing materials by shoving them into the field supposed to have pictures of your app... apple is rejecting them because they are not pictures of your app.
What does "won't let me show my app" mean? Does the author mean that it's just getting rejected, or is he unhappy about the screenshot situation specifically?
If you're ever in the position this developer is in where
"Communicating the idea has always been difficult for this app, and I am happy with my latest attempt through the new screenshots I created."
Then your app either has no value, is too difficult to explain the value, or your communication skills are poor. Whatever the case may be, this might not be the job for you.
Dude. Not even your blog post is clear enough. I had to right click one of the images and open it in another tab in order to be able to discern _anything_ on the image.
There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize the app store review process for but this isn't one of them.
Apple is protecting their users and the overall browse experience by enforcing consistency in listings.
Your app's screenshots don't really show in the first three screens when they really should, these are the ones that will show up in search, at least until we can add full banners w/ iOS 27.
There are all sorts of creative ways you could layer in the paper aspect behind a device mockup across two screens which would both show your app and its paper output.
Perhaps have the paper on a desk and the phone at an angle on top of it, showing the screens.
Remember you don't have to explain what's where on the paper, just communicate its value and that your app is the way the user gets to it.
Interesting that the comments are almost unanimously in favor of Apple on this one.
I suspect the blog post was an attempt at viral marketing for the app. It worked in some sense, as it’s been on places like the HN front page where this app would normally never be discussed. I’m skeptical that it converts to app downloads, but it might be helping their SEO if it gets shared across the internet enough.
Frustrating for those of us baited into reading it
"The majority of the screenshots should highlight the app’s main features and functionality. Note that splash and login screens are generally not considered to show the app in use."
I agree with the feedback. Fix your screenshots (and whatever else is clearly not in line with app store guidelines).
I don't think these are screenshots (as an amateur). It's an infographic that includes what could be a screenshot.
I'm going to take the side of Apple on this one. Looking at the screenshots I have no idea what the app does.
Screenshot 1: A sheet of paper next to a phone. Is it printer bridge?
Screenshot 2/3: Calendar and Reminders. Is it a to-do compiler that pulls from sources that already exist on the device?
Screenshot 4: A phone with a date picker. Ok, what about the last day of the month?
Screenshot 5: Print your daily plan. We're finally getting to what the app does, I think.
Screenshot 6: A phone with a screenshot of prompts. I'm lost again, are you an LLM?
Exactly. I think this may be a trap of solo development without external feedback. You can easily logic your way down a rabbit hole, and without a second set of eyes to call you out, you end up building something that makes perfect sense to you but is completely alien to an uninvested person.
And then when you post it for people to look at they call it AI slop and viral marketing
Except in this case for this app you’re simply complaining that your app is rejected on “being ai”. I am also on team Apple, as I have no idea what this app actually does.
It actually sounds like you pretty much got it, except for #4. The intention was to show that you can use free text to write a cadence, there was the blue writing caret to indicate that. But it might be too subtle.
And for #6, that's how the idea actually started. I asked myself "what would happen if I prompted myself like an AI?" and it turns out, it was a great experience.
> It actually sounds like you pretty much got it
Awesome, so I got that it doesn't make any sense.
What about the blue line indicates that? The blue line did not indicate anything to me as there’s no flow.
Agree. Looks like ai slop
Two of six screenshots show the app. So the rejection fits the rules and is easy to understand. I often agree with complaints that Apple's rejections are unclear or problematic, but this isn't one of those cases.
And I'm kind of confused by these screenshots as well, since there are lines between them, as if they're one screenshot. And the labels over the screenshots are nonsensical and graphically glitched.
It's too bad Apple doesn't require it to be all 6 screenshots must be unedited screenshots.
Looking at what is on the website and in the App Store, I still don’t have a good understanding of what this app even does. It prints something based on your calendar and some self-help prompts?
App Store rules aside, since this app has no free trial, it should be easier for a potential customer to understand what this app is attempting to be.
It definitely has a free trial, and yeah it prints 3 tools:
* a timeline which pulls in your calendar (you can use this to timebox as well as timetrack.)
* a daily list of prompts, which are scheduled using recur rules (which you can generate using natural language.) a prompt is useful for lots of things, which is the hard part of explaining it
* a list of your reminders for the reminders app, which can also work like a lighter version of prompts and/or todos.
Basically this app combines digital and paper planning and journaling into one page that's easier to carry and more useful than anything else (imo.)
I'm assuming the images on the current listing are the replacement: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wiseday-mentor-yourself/id6752...
These are so much more clear. The first image shows the core concept that this generates printable schedules to go on A4 paper, and the very next images shows the print dialog in the app itself. Instantly, I know what this does. Apple pushed you towards a much better app pitch page! I'm interested! This is a really neat idea.
Tangential, but I work at a company making POS systems so we end up with a lot of weird knowledge about receipt printers. Past ~year or so, I've set up a little web service at home that prints out my calendar on a receipt printer near my coffee maker early in the morning so while I'm getting up and still groggy, I have a little schedule for the day ready to skim over. By far, my favourite weekend project ever. A couple weeks ago I got it printing out a sudoku puzzle (just baaaarely fits on 80mm thermal paper) on weekend mornings! If you could somehow get this rendering the templates it prints out in ESC/P byteslop (it's a confusing standard) in addition to rasterized documents, that could be neat! In terms of cost-to-print, muuuuch cheaper for a daily-use thing. The main thermal printer companies have iOS libraries you can drop into your app, or you can just send the bytes directly to it, netcat style. Always surprised that just works... sometimes.
The live store version is the initial app, i.e. those screenshots are the ones to be replaced by the ones in the blog post.
I agree the old first image (with the hands pulling out the page) could be better (in terms of clarity) than what I am going with for the new launch (just the plan next to a phone.) My thinking was the new one being a bit more vague to catch someone's eye as they browse, so they stop and look.
Thermal printers are way too niche I think, plus the PFAS exposure on that paper is supposed to be insane, and aren't they much smaller plus harder to write on with a pen?
I personally think the ones you have on there right now are great! The hand pulling the schedule out of the printer 100% describes the cool thing your app does over other journaling/calendar apps! You need a printer to fully benefit from it, so it makes sense to show one.
I think apple has an issue with the lack of screenshots in the new images, which in the current version are present and self-explanatory. The second one being a screenshot of the print dialog, confirms the way this app works. In terms of clarity, you already nailed it in my book. Getting folks to stop and think is easier with an obvious face-blast of "hey!! this does X cool thing" as long as the people that like X exist (they do, source: me) versus trying to capture people with "hmmm... what does this mean?"... the reality is that only YOU care about your app. Being curious is a time investment you're hoping other people make. Throw 'em a bone with "the cool thing" right away.
I will say, I love the "best X at Y film festival"-esque laurel branch award on the first image in the new set. "1000+ agendas printed" comes off as a bit self-deprecating in a fun way that is endearing. I am slightly worried that might come off negatively in this comment, but I genuinely think it's cute, and made me smile. An app with a focus on shaping your mindset should celebrate the little wins!
And yeah, thermal printers are niche haha, just tossing it out there. I am simply fuelled by lubricious sheen of PFAS coursing through my veins.
Did similar. Ordered mini 58mm Bluetooth printer and wrote small service to stream the byteslop as you called it! Worked too well.
AYY! That's kick ass! I hope you don't mind, but I may need to use your comment as proof for my partner as to why it's not weird to have a homelab receipt printer heh
For what it's worth, I haven't seen any significant increase in the app review times, contrary to what the article suggests. My app updates are normally reviewed within 24 hours, rarely 48; just as Apple promises. Not sure if they hired more reviewers, introduced more automation, or did anything else, but they are keeping up well enough.
Our app goes through regular updates via app submission and has taken less than two days past couple months. They must be going off reputation score after initial acceptance.
New apps submissions review time did increase.
I once wrote a similar blog post when Apple rejected one of my games for bogus reasons.
Then out of frustration I deleted the submission and re-submitted with no changes except a new version number - that one was approved.
Deleted the blog post lol.
Over the following years I would learn that the App Store review process is random. It depends on who you get. Sometimes the reviewer seems mistaken about things and reject it, and on the other end sometimes they approve a build that has bugs, as if they didn't test it at all.
One time a reviewer accurately caught iPad issues. Apple reviewers love iPad. Make sure your app works on all modern versions.
Also once you get approved the first time, that app will usually get easily approved after that.
For games: They are very unlikely to play through a whole game and find bugs later on (a problem IMO), but they are more likely to use surface level menus and things on a regular app, so in some ways it can be easier to get a faulty game approved where regular apps are held to higher standards.
Has to be random spot-checks and mostly automated scans, the numbers they say on the website would not allow time for exhaustively testing everyone.
> Every week, nearly 500 dedicated experts around the world review over 130K apps.
https://www.apple.com/app-store/
I just gave myself an idea: e2e testing for games
I know it's their job, but gotta feel for these app reviewers who must spend day after day reviewing ai generated apps. The only way to prevent this is to gatekeep that developer license with a higher base fee. Of course the review process was painful before, but it's only gotten more clogged and opaque.
Pour one out for anyone whose job has pivoted to reviewing ai output, science journals, literary journals, teachers, OSS maintainers.
They should ban your developer account without refund after the first vibecoding violation, that would reduce their workload.
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It's posts like these that make me very unempathetic to developers who complain about Apple. I'm looking at the screenshots, and I can't understand what the app does nor how the new screenshots are representative of app functionality. However, despite having unclear screenshots, the developer blames Apple's malice when they just want to maintain a standard for users. For many of these developers, Apple is just a bully that stands in the way of them from scamming users.
The consequence of bad screenshots is nobody will download the app, which is a fate shared by about 80% of apps anyway.
Scammers certainly aren't the ones complaining, they have no emotional attachment to their apps and they're following steps designed to satisfy a superficial review.
> Digging deeper, 9to5Mac found a public GitHub repository containing instructions for a Cursor agent to create simple, vibe-coded apps that serve as fronts for the betting platforms.
https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/17/investigation-reveals-dozens-...
Sorry, rather the word "scamming", I should have used the word "user-hostile". I don't think Facebook is scamming users, but as it stands Apple is in the way from them using every device api to siphon every possible inch of data from users.
It's exactly these kinds of developers who shout the loudest that Apple is being unfair, when all Apple is preventing them from doing is taking advantage of users.
I mean, these issues are exclusive to Apple's App Store. The Mac doesn't have this problem at all.
> > Issue: The screenshots do not show the actual app in use in the majority of the screenshots. Screenshots should highlight the app’s core concept to help users understand the app’s functionality and value.
This is the first thing everyone learns when they look up the requirements for App Store screenshots.
You got it wrong, but they provided a clear and actionable path to fix it.
I’m with Apple on this one. The requirements are clear and you missed them the first time. It’s an easy fix. I don’t see why this warrants a clickbait blog post, other than to try to generate some viral outrage marketing for this app.
You aren't showing your app. You are just showing your marketing materials by shoving them into the field supposed to have pictures of your app... apple is rejecting them because they are not pictures of your app.
I don't think "X The Everything App takes a long time for review" is a useful point of comparison, Elon Inc. isn't sending their best.
What does "won't let me show my app" mean? Does the author mean that it's just getting rejected, or is he unhappy about the screenshot situation specifically?
If you're ever in the position this developer is in where
"Communicating the idea has always been difficult for this app, and I am happy with my latest attempt through the new screenshots I created."
Then your app either has no value, is too difficult to explain the value, or your communication skills are poor. Whatever the case may be, this might not be the job for you.
Open your app in the iOS emulator and push the screenshot button. Upload that. What you have now is marketing material.
Tried with a notes app and failed too. For family usage you might consider TestFlight.
Dude. Not even your blog post is clear enough. I had to right click one of the images and open it in another tab in order to be able to discern _anything_ on the image.
> It is now taking longer to get our app approved than it is to build the actual features.
You see, this is really kind of key to the whole thing. Who is doing the actual work now?
".. in general do a great job of keeping app quality high."
Huh?
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