Apple to publish App developer guidelines, will explain submission rejections

Apple are to publish an official App Store Review Guidelines manual, hoping to make their app approval process more transparent by doing so.

The app submission process has gotten itself quite the reputation for being a little bewildering. Apple reserve the right to reject any app they take a disliking too and, as they often offer little or no explanation as to why (apart from obvious reasons such as explicit sexual or violent content), some developers have been caught in a vicious cycle of resubmitting content over and over, only to have it dismissed again and again.

Until now that is.

“For the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps,” says the Apple press website. “We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store”.

App makers will also be given more freedom in how they use the development software: “In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need”.

The App Store already has well over 250,000 apps up for grabs. Perhaps that number will see some significant growth in the coming weeks, as developers finally have some parameters to work within without fear of rejection.