Reply to your overlords when your application is rejected.

I recently submitted an application called Nudge! to the App Store. Like most of you, I get a little antsy too waiting for the emails to come in with status updates, hoping to see it ultimately get approved and appear on the store hours later. It’s exciting!

Nudge! support site link.
Nudge! link to the App Store.

After a bit, I received an email stating that my application was rejected because it did not first obtain user permission for Push Notifications. Interesting. I was using UILocalNotifications, but not remote ones. I quickly scanned my code looking for mention anywhere that it had code support remote in the project. Nope. Perhaps a new evaluator saw the notifications without an alert asking if it was okay to display them, and flagged me.

I followed a link in the email to the Resolution Center, where I could reply to the rejection reason right there, and I mentioned that I was using local notifications and not remote ones.

An hour later the app went back into review, and then about 15 minutes later I saw “Preparing for App Store” – and got excited. Sure enough it was quickly approved, merely by pointing out the problem to Apple.

Moral of the story – don’t be afraid to politely push back when you’re unsure of an app rejection. Or you think the rejection doesn’t have true merit. I was happily surprised that they quickly escalated the situation and saw the rejection was faulty and then quickly took care of it.

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