App Rejections

Here’s a great example of how to get a time-limited free app (just like standard Shareware) on the App Store. Tawag Pinoy and zPhone lite are free, but after 30 days you can no longer use them, and have to upgrade to the paid version. According to Giro Apps … first time around, Apple rejected it:

“… cannot be posted because it is a trial version. Free or “lite” versions are acceptable, however the application must be a fully functional app and cannot reference features that are not implemented or up-sell to the full version”

The problem here is that there *are* apps that already do this … so why was this one rejected? According to the author, it all comes down to a simple, undocumented, official number: the number 30.

The original app was NOT free for 30 days, but rather 15 days:

it was full featured for 15 days, then after that trial period certain functionalities would not work anymore, but the app would retain still some functionalities.

… and when the author appealled the rejection:

after 5 days, I received a call from Steve Rea of Apple. They were granting my appeal and they only requested that I comply with an unpublished internal policy, that trial version apps have a minimum of 30 days of trial period. I resubmitted my apps with this change they requested, and now the apps are live on the AppStore. They are full featured 30 day trial version apps with option to keep all features working after the trial period via IAP.

A side note on wording: “Unlock”

Yves Gonzalez had another useful point on the topic

Also, they politely requested that the word “unlock all features…” in my app description be changed to “enable all features…”, as they have an internal policy against that word “unlock” as well.