How to resolve Apple App rejections

Your App's details entered in Passion.io Platform could be rejected by app stores during their review. Review the App Store Review Guidelines to ensure your app passes the review process smoothly, whether it's new or existing.

Take me to the App Store Review Guidelines

IN THIS ARTICLE

1. Common Causes of Rejections

2. Common Rejection Messages and How to deal with them

3. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

When your app is rejected, we promptly investigate and make necessary changes. If needed, we'll reach out to you for input. 

We prioritize resolving the rejection and resubmitting your app quickly. If you want to know why it was rejected, check your email from Apple and your developer account. 

We're here to support you through this process to ensure your app meets the standards for approval.

1. Common Causes of Rejections

Here are the common rejection causes for newly submitted apps or new releases:

• Wrong Metadata

  Metadata refers to your app's description, developer name, title, icon, screenshots, and promotional images. 

  Descriptions are a key part of any app – this is what potential users will see before purchasing, and they need to understand what your app is all about. Providing insufficient or inaccurate descriptions for your app will lead to rejections.

  Overview of the most common causes of rejections:

  • Mentioning future functionality and features like coming soon, coming shortly, with the next release, arriving soon
  • Mentioning other platforms like Android, Amazon, Blackberry, PayPal, WhatsApp, or Windows
  • Mentioning Apple products and copyrights incorrectly (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/marketing/guidelines/#section-legal)

  Make sure all your app details and metadata are accurate and complete, including any added links. Ensure that the links are working.

    

• Screenshots

  • Screenshots are important for your app description.
  • Have 3-4 screenshots showing your app in use.
  • Follow guidelines: Show your app in action, avoid just showing title or login screens.
  • You can add text and images and show extra features on the device.

• Using placeholder texts

  Apple doesn't allow any placeholder text, such as "coming soon”, “This is an example", or “Lorem Ipsum”. Submissions to App Review should be final versions with all necessary metadata and fully functional URLs.

• Changing your pricing plans often

  You can continue editing your app while waiting for it to be approved however, changing the subscription price before approval causes rejections and back-and-forth messages with Apple as this usually causes major confusion with the reviewers. Please wait for the recent submission to be approved before making any changes to your subscription prices.

   

• Monthly subscription for 6-week plans

  Rejections may arise when you write "6 weeks" anywhere in the app summary, price name, sales page, etc but set the plan price as a "monthly subscription". This will not make sense with Apple since the course will only last for weeks.  

  To avoid this rejection, kindly state that new content will appear every month and that end-users will achieve great changes within 6 weeks.

• Mentioning COVID/Corona or similar terms

  App stores are still very conscious of the tragic global situation and don't want anyone to take advantage of or profit from the issue or similar global issues.

• Data Protection

  Phrases like "Bonus: You will be included in an exclusive WhatsApp group" in your app description may cause Apple App Store rejections for these reasons:

  1. Unclear how you'll get the subscriber’s phone number.
  2. Concerns about possible unauthorized data collection, leading to immediate rejection.

  Best Practice: To avoid this, don't use such phrases in your app description. Use them in ads or web pages instead.

• Promoting payment links outside of Apple/Google in the app summary

  Both Apple and Google take a 30% commission from the payments performed in their app stores, and they don’t allow anyone to use their stores while taking payments externally since it goes against their guidelines. If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, you must use in-app purchase.

• Not having any products published

  At least one product (course) has to be published and added to the pricing option. Otherwise, Apple sees an empty shell of an app and it gets rejected.

2. Common Rejection Messages and How to Deal with Them

• Guideline 2.1 - Performance - App Completeness

  We still discovered one or more bugs in your app when reviewed on an iPad running iOS 13.4.1 on Wi-Fi.

  Specifically, we were unable to sign up for an account. An error message was displayed during the process.

  Resolution: (Use response below to send to Apple)

  Thanks for your response. Please note that this is not an error.

  When you get an error message when signing up, it means the email address you provided is already in our database and you can just log in using that email and the associated password.

  You can also sign up using an email address that has not yet been associated for sign-up with any apps from Passion.io apps

  Kindly review again.

• Guideline 2.1 - Performance - App Completeness

  We discovered one or more bugs in your app when reviewed on an iPad running iOS 13.4.1 on Wi-Fi.

  - We were unable to buy a subscription, the “Start Now” button was unresponsive.

  Resolution:

  If you receive this rejection, check the Pricing Plans that you're offering in your SalesPage and make sure that the information matches that on App Store Connect. If it's missing any of your pricing plans, follow the steps on how to re-submit the In-app purchases. Make sure to reply to the review team first before sending the app again for review.

• Guideline 4.2 - Design - Minimum Functionality

  We found that the usefulness of your app is limited by the minimal amount of content or features it includes.

  Next Steps

  We encourage you to review your app concept and incorporate different content and features that comply 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 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.

  Resolution:

  Check your PassionApps specifically PassionProducts if the app has sufficient content. If not, add more content before submitting the app for review.

• Guideline 3.1.2 - Business - Payments - Subscriptions

  We noticed that your app offers a free trial without implementing the offer in App Store Connect. Offering free trials through App Store Connect ensures that when the free trial period is over, the user will automatically be billed (unless the user has canceled the subscription).

  Resolution:

  Make sure to add the free trial period if your pricing plan has a free trial added to it. If not, you can respond to Apple and let them know that you don’t intend to provide a free trial for the content.  

• Guideline 5.1.1 - Legal - Privacy - Data Collection and Storage

  We noticed that your app requires users to register or log in to access features that are not account-based.

  Resolution:

  Advise the app review team that your app is account-based and users need to at least register an account before gaining access to the app.

3. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. The rejection message isn't shown in this article. What should I do? 

Some rejection messages from Apple are new or maybe uncommon. If the rejection requires technical intervention from our side, please don't hesitate to reach out to us for assistance. You can reach out via email.

2. When can I expect a response from Apple regarding my rejection response? 

Apple usually responds and provides feedback within 24-48 hours.