APPROVED: KaChing (after adding some features)
I avoided the initial rejection because there was nothign interesting about it, other than the author. However, KaChing, the app that does nothing but make a cash-register sound when you run it, has now been approved now that they’ve added a very basic feature to it and resubmitted, and that definitely *is* interesting :
So what would it take to get KaChing Button approved?
I decided to add an options button that would allow users to change the currency on the front of the button. Now, users could select from the dollar, pound, euro or yen. After all, the KaChing sound is universal!
It is probable that Apple really approved this due to the nicely done YouTube video Joel put up advertising his rejection – and the implicit threat that he’d keep on poking fun at the utterly inconsistent approvals policy Apple has in place for bottom-scraping apps. Interestingly, the YT video didn’t get a huge number of views, but Joel is well known to Apple, and has a huge audience of his own.
(take note of how he comes across in the video: in practice, it’s a damning attack on Apple, but it’s delivered very non-confrontationally, and very unemotively. Joel doesn’t criticise or rant at Apple for approving other “worthless” apps while rejecting his own, he barely mentions them. It’s very hard for anyone to knock him for such a polite, friendly, and amusing video. This probably helps get Apple to react positively to your appeal…).
Joel Comm is extremely good at marketing, and knows what to say to get attention, and to make money. He uses similar factually-critical-yet-non-accusatory language in his original post on the rejection. And hey – he’s boldly charging a dollar for an app that any iPhone developer could create in under 5 minutes.
Which, IMHO, is what the Ka-Ching plan was really about: highlight an inconsistency, stir up media attention, then re-submit (successfully) as the news dies down … and re-contact the news outlets and get them to write follow-up articles that include a “buy this app now” link. This worked well for the fart apps, so why not repeat it?
So, I suspect Apple has been played here. But I’m sure they realise that. The simplest “fair” thing to do was to accept the app (the fairest alternative being to remove the existing apps that are similarly simplistic), and it could be a good sign that Apple’s moved in that direction – even though they know they’ve played right into Joel’s hands.
(and good luck to him – if he can push Apple to improve their processes *and* make cash at the same time, congrats!)
