Chinese developers file complaint against Apple for 4.3 design spam guideline

CUPERTINO, CA, Sept. 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Fair-In law firm filed a new complaint against Apple's unreasonable App Store review guidelines on behalf of 31 local developers in China.

On August 8th, Daxiao, a Chinese law firm, lodged a complaint with the Chinese government about Apple removing apps from its App Store without a detailed explanation of its unreasonable 4.3 Review Guideline.

Things are getting much more serious. There are more than 31 developers complaining about Apple's unreasonable 4.3 App Store review guideline. Xu Yun, a lawyer from Chinese Fair-In law firm, said: "We have formally filed this complaint with China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce and hope it can be resolved soon."

According to the lawyer, this guideline is vague and subjective depending on how each Apple reviewer feels. The application of this guideline is also erratic and random.

While reviewers remove many apps with similar design for different markets, they leave many untouched. The lawyer said: "If you search "Toyota dealer", you will find many apps using the same design as Toyota's app, like Ford, Honda, Hyundai, GM, Chrysler, etc. This also happens to apps like Days Inn. They are all the same but none of them get removed. This is a clear violation of Apple's 4.3 spam policy and obviously it is unfair to other developers. "

"If Apple looks into these 31 developers carefully, they will easily find that all these apps target different people and each one has its own database. Also these apps were approved before but got removed suddenly without giving any detailed reason. Our developers have tried many times to communicate with Apple but still don't know the reason. If Apple wants others to obey their rules, maybe they should follow their policy first," Xu Yun said.

A developer also pointed out that, "We believe that the 4.3 rule is really confusing and unreasonable. After getting removed, we changed the app design according to Apple's 4.3 reviewing rule and submitted to Apple but the status is still waiting for review for over 3 weeks without any explanation. Apple just ignores its developers even if they are doing their best to satisfy Apple now? Apple also requests developers to put their 2 or 3 apps into one container even though those apps target different groups of users. Putting them into one container only confuses all users with very bad user experiences!"

Steve Jobs had been relentless in trying hard to provide users around the world with the best product and best user experiences - not just unique design. In fact, he failed many times early in his career when he tried to be just unique. We don't think Steve would agree with the current Apple practice of sacrificing product quality and user experiences in exchange for having different looking products.  In fact, many of the removed apps provide much better product quality and user experiences than the untouched apps. The traffic and user-retention rates for them are much higher. The market decides the winners, not Apple's unique-design-crazy reviewers.

Mobile platforms iOS, Android and Windows are fighting over developers. Apple is driving away tons of developers due to its misleading policy of focusing on the look, instead of the product quality and user-experiences. It is time for Apple to make the "right" decision now before being deserted by more and more developers.

SOURCE Xu Yun