Being an App Store developer is like intentionally walking into an abusive relationship and hoping that the pay-off will be worth the trouble.

I'm sure you're aware but, as an app developer, the review process seems random at many times.

Depending upon the phase of the moon certain features or metadata may be accepted or rejected in apps. Even when the exact same features have been accepted in prior app versions and app reviews (without changes to the actual guidelines).

In such cases, perhaps Apple's interpretation of the guidelines have changed. If so, there's no way for app developers to know this until they get hit with a rejection. Rejections rarely include explanation of the interpretation so it's up to the developer to try and interpret what the real issue is.

This is on top of the fact that, in many cases, Apple deliberately uses the guidelines and shifting interpretations to delay or destroy competitors. This occurs even if competitors are acting within the guidelines and all prior known interpretations of those guidelines.

Yeah, they did say that these processes were part of the value that developers _gladly_ pay 30% + $100 for...

They also don’t force developers to pay $99 or 30%

Eh, it’s pretty easy to hide things behind a feature flag during the review process.

I think their point is that the App Store review process is random and arbitrary.

Which is not to say that "Report a Scam or Fraud" is a bad policy.

App Store review can be random, AND this can be a good policy. (Well, good for consumers. I could see it causing developers some issues if competitors weaponize it.)

I, for one, like the f-droid model or you could say any sane package manager model.

When I download a package from f-droid repository, I know the folks at f-droid have the source code of the bits I downloaded. Same thing with Debian and Fedora. Why can't Apple do the same thing? Require developers to submit machine-readable source code along with build instructions. Build them directly on Apple servers. Sign them with Apple's certificates.

I am not an Apple developer. As a consumer, I would welcome such a change.

Now, it is true that you could have a web view that fetches application chrome/content from a web server but I would argue Apple should disallow such apps anyway.

While that might be a great idea, Apple is a competitor of many of the companies in the App Store. I'm not sure how they'd feel about their largest competitor having access to their absolutely-valuable-and-secret source code.

They could require it be stored with a reputable escrow company.

Huh, what's the value in the review process then..?

To limit competition.

Human error.

This is a strange comment. Do you think people are infallible? lol.

The comparison to HN is wrong. Moderators would first have to read the comments and let them through.

My point is that even if moderators did read the comments and let them through, that wouldn't obviate the need, since moderators aren't perfect.

Part of Apple's argument in the Epic case was that their screening process mitigated the need for things like this.

This is essentially an admission that their review process has problems.

Apple admitted that? They've never claimed it's perfect. Just that it's better than not having it.

I think the charitable take is that the comment is in jest.

if we had to pay to submit comments and wait a few days or even weeks for it to go through the company's "stringent" rules before it is approved, then yes a flagging button is counterintuitive.

not really, you think it would be perfect? there are plenty of review systems that take literally years and still fail. If you're based in the USA you should be familiar with these.