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.

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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.

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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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pasc1878 17 hours ago | parent [-]

In that case they should be requesting the documentation first.

	▲	msephton 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They do, as mentioned in my post above to which you are replying.