| ▲ | billyp-rva a day ago |
| I'm not sure what Apple can do here; Pandora's box is open and it won't be closed. It felt like there was a flood of app releases in the early 2010s during the gold rush. I can't even imagine it now. |
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| ▲ | itake a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| I noticed that Apple has been updating their documentation so developers can have less back and forth when releasing an app. Apple has anti-spam app policies that basically limit innovation and competition in certain product categories. An extreme example would be Apple not allowing any more "sleep music apps" b/c there is enough in the store. An investor actually approached me about buying a couple mobile apps I made b/c they are "aged" and don't need to go through the rigorous first-review approval process |
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| ▲ | msephton a day ago | parent [-] | | My most recent two submissions were rejected, they asked me to upload videos of me playing the games on a physical device. Honestly! I’m at a loss. They would rather reject and pushback until they can just watch a video than review the app? I guess it shifts some of the approval workload back onto me? If it works, I’m still waiting, I’ll attach videos in future to skip the pain. | | |
| ▲ | pasc1878 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | That sounds good. The developer has to produce documentation of what works etc before the Apple reviewers waste time on it. Given the load of AI slop they must be getting the limiting resource is the reviewer so cut down the work they have to do. | | |
| ▲ | msephton 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | Your logic or understanding is bad. The video is only requested after a rejection, not before submission. So Apple are not saving themselves time here, quite the opposite they are causing multiple rounds of review. The app/game is already proven to work at the time it is compiled and again as it is uploaded and put through Apple’s first line of App Store checks. Apple is already putting large demands on developers with enforced SDK changes and new devices, we need them to do more for us not less. Large companies might be able to eat the time required to do these videos, but as an indie developer it already takes hours or days to prepare the app store page. This is not good by any measure. | | |
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| ▲ | makeitdouble a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > what Apple can do A lot, they _can_ do almost whatever they want with their own AppStore and own business model. Including making good on the anti-trust lawsuit they've got for a decade around the world and let go of their monopoly. We shouldn't make it sound like they _have to be_ the bad guys. Even from a business standpoint they're slowly losing the grip on their market and getting back some goodwill wouldn't be a bad thing. |
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| ▲ | benoau a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They can hire more reviewers - they say they only have 500, that's the same number they had in 2020 when the Epic judge called them out for it. |
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| ▲ | Groxx a day ago | parent [-] | | And makes around $10,000,000,000 per year off the app store: https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/08/appfigures-apple-made-over... They can absolutely afford to hire more. | | |
| ▲ | wahnfrieden a day ago | parent [-] | | They will not. Why would high revenue be a reason to hire more? They look at margins and they want to optimize them, not use better margins as a reason to pursue smaller margins. Small time indie developers and businesses that earn them less than millions a month in fees are not worth their time. They’re solving this by automating more telemetry, not by hiring more junior and senior reviewers. They don’t want to take a loss on small devs. Only way they change course is via regulations. | | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 'Optimize' here seems to mean abusing the very developers who produce software for their devices. This is just greed and imho proof that markets are not self-correcting. | |
| ▲ | Hnrobert42 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Or competition. Or that more reviewers might lead to more apps which lead to more revenue. | | |
| ▲ | natpalmer1776 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Competition would have to come in the form of regulation given the lack of other options on iOS | |
| ▲ | xp84 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I suspect Apple knows that most of their revenue comes from the top 500 casino games for children. They probably get all their reviews fast-tracked to keep them happy. Most (by quantity) of the rest is apps that are free and don't make much money from IAP and just monetize with tons of ads. Apple doesn't get their beak wet on those so they know that even a few million more spent on reviewers wouldn't make a big difference in their own revenue. The rest of us, we just have to wait our turn. | | |
| ▲ | realusername 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I suspect Apple knows that most of their revenue comes from the top 500 casino games for children. They probably get all their reviews fast-tracked to keep them happy. Trust me they know, that's why every single marketing page on the appstore (do not take my word for it, go check it) almost only talks about either education or productivity apps. |
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| ▲ | ranger_danger a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Or they could focus on a better developer experience (like more testers/faster turnaround) which will drive even more people to their platform. The extra investment might be worth it. |
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| ▲ | NewJazz a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Allow third party app stores. |
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| ▲ | birdsongs 20 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I thought this was supposed to be allowed in Europe, due to a ruling. What happened with that? Or am I miss-remembering? | | |
| ▲ | realusername 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Apple complied in bad faith and it's still impossible to do direct installs on mobile. | | |
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| ▲ | tonyedgecombe 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Even better, allow side loading. | | |
| ▲ | u8080 20 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's just loading, AppStore is in fact side-loading since it uses 3rd party provider. | |
| ▲ | eps 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Can't wait for this to be forced down their throats by some lawsuit. |
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| ▲ | bluegatty a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They are the richest company in the world worth trillions. You're not sure what they can do? 1) hire more people 2) let people buy apps from wherever they want. |
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| ▲ | wahnfrieden a day ago | parent [-] | | Why do people think rich businesses will spend more? They protect their margins. Companies don’t earn more to spend more of their margin. Only way to get what we want from Apple is regulation. | | |
| ▲ | bluegatty a day ago | parent [-] | | I don't think they will spend more. I think they will spend less. The can spend more, is the answer to OP question |
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| ▲ | emidoots a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| it's not just Apple. Steam game review is now taking weeks due to the amount of AI slop being published, whereas before it was 3-5 days. I'm not sure how platforms will handle this honestly. Of course they want to curate a bit and avoid blatant malware/spam, though. |
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| ▲ | ZeWaka a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Even just internal Steamworks requests are taking 3-5x as long. | |
| ▲ | benoau a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In both of these cases the platforms are absurdly profitable, 75% profit margin for Apple, fleet of mega-yachts for Steam, the solution is they stop skimping on review and hire more people to keep up. | | |
| ▲ | calmingsolitude 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | If the reason for the higher throughput is the flood of mostly AI-generated slop apps, does it make sense to hire and spend human time reviewing them? IMO the answer is no, because there isn't an upper limit to the number of apps that can be generated. | | |
| ▲ | benoau 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | In 2020 they had 500 reviewers and had grown to about 2 million apps, the judge in the Epic trial called them out for not hiring enough. Today they still have 500 reviewers and about 3 million apps, so you can't exclusively blame the growth on AI slop it's a combination of they should have been hiring more reviewers all along and AI slop has exacerbated their long-standing decision not to. They have some duty to the developers who paid them for distribution rights whether they're making AI slop, manual slop or something worthwhile, and their processes should scale appropriately. |
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| ▲ | svachalek a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | $1000 application fee would probably thin the herd. | | |
| ▲ | Gigachad a day ago | parent [-] | | A nicer way to frame it would be a $1000 deposit, and you get fee free sales up until the fees waived reach the deposit. It's zero cost for real games but a barrier to slop. | | |
| ▲ | Rohansi a day ago | parent [-] | | Probably not a bad idea. They (Steam) basically do this right now, except the deposit is only $100. |
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| ▲ | nalekberov a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > I'm not sure what Apple can do here; Hire more reviewers. Apple is making a shitload of money from App Store sales (and of course by scamming its users in many creative ways). They'd better spend it on making developers happier, not on thickening the walls of their garden. |
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| ▲ | wahnfrieden a day ago | parent [-] | | They don’t make a shitload off the small apps like the synthesizer from this post. They aren’t going to introduce more expensive Cupertino and Cork reviewers to help that category of dev. They’re a business and will automate instead of have small time earners occupy more time on reviewer desks. | | |
| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes a day ago | parent | next [-] | | "They're a business so they'll continue pinching pennies and creating bad will" is not a well-constructed take. Apple make a shitload of money from the app store in general, including app developer subscriptions. The review process is already semi-automated, and hiring a few hundred human reviewers of all kinds would be a cash flow rounding error. | |
| ▲ | spencerflem a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | You still have to pay them $100 a year to even submit so it’s not like the devs are asking for free labor | | |
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