It looks like that's exactly what they've done. There's a screenshot of the setting buried in here: https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/24/ios-10-3-beta-1/

Now I just want an option to forbid apps repeatedly asking me to turn on notifications, and repeatedly asking me to get on a wifi network.

They already can only ask once, but apps use a trick to get around that. When they ask you if you want notifications turned on they'll first show you a fake pop up that asks if you want them on - you need to click yes to this one in order to get the real Apple one which you can then deny.

If you do that the only way to turn them back on is to go into system settings.

According to Gruber / Apple it's a max of three prompts per year, regardless of version.

https://twitter.com/gruber/status/824022727870861316

[UPDATE] There's also an App Store setting so you can disable requests:

https://youtu.be/_qA5p9dQGas?t=2m40s

Trivially avoidable by having an App based prompt instead of directly calling into the AppStore UX.

With this new API in place, I guess they will forbid your from asking for reviews elsewhere.

How does that work? How can Apple prevent douchebags from calling the new API from a modal "Do you love my app? No / Not yet" dialog?

Simple: By rejecting apps which do that.

They are already allowing apps to do stuff which is against the rules. I am on a personal crusade on Twitter against apps that spam me with notifications to "come back".

I also hate this, but what rule does that violate? Perhaps 4.5.4?

> 4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes or to send sensitive personal or confidential information.

It's a should and not a must... I'm not sure if they enforce all "shoulds." Also, from a review perspective, how could you tell? These sort of notifications are typically triggered after days (or hours) of inactivity, and I don't think they observe your app that long.

If you, as a user, complained about an app doing this to Apple, I wonder if they'd pull it.

I do not think that Apple has the means to test this in the review, but maybe there should be a way to mark spam notifications somehow.

What I do now is that I complain to the developer/company twitter accounts. Most of the time I receive very hopeful and polite replies and ... nothing gets fixed.

I'm sorry you feel this way, but our market studies have shown that most of our users respond positively to being spammed daily, and almost all of them come back and spend money as a result!!!!111!

Apple does static binary analysis + manual testing of apps before release. It's the same way they can prevent you from charging money for things without going through in-app purchases and Apple's 30% cut, or even from showing a website that lets you purchase things without going through in-app purchases (this is why, for instance, Kindle for Android lets you buy books and Kindle for iOS doesn't).

If you use your own prompt in order to try and show it to users who have chosen not to see the built-in one, then you're just asking for bad reviews. People who don't want to see your prompt don't want to see it. Why would they give you a good review if you're bugging them to do something they explicitly chose not to do?

According to Daring Fireball (http://daringfireball.net/2017/01/new_app_store_review_featu...), at some point Apple will change the rules so that this new API is the only way apps are allowed to ask for reviews, but right now there's no timeline for when this will happen.

Right. But I want to help developers I like (especially small developer shops).