who is the dodgy company??
Thanks for your replies everyone. The biggest issue I have since I am ineligible for an apple developer account is that even when I make my apps available for download, there’s the dreaded “unknown developer” issue. In my tests on high sierra, I can not even open my apps. Right clicking and choosing open only gives me the options “cancel” and “move to trash.”
I had to do “sudo spctl --master-disable” to give me the option to disable gatekeeper, but this is way too much to ask a casual user to install my apps. It seems apple is locking out those of us who don’t/can’t use the app store.
Again, this is probably a topic worthy of a new thread and I’ll probably write one when I have found my motivation again. I’m so emotionally shattered by this setback that I haven’t worked on my app in a couple of weeks and I’m really considering throwing in the towel on the mac version altogether.
why? everyone is “eligible”
plus your “casual” user doesn’t have to disable “gatekeeper”… they just need to tell SysPref to accept you app is all.
Just curious, why would you not be allowed to have a developer account ?
I worked as a contractor for Apple and as part of my agreement I can not have a developer account for 5 years after leaving the company (about 4 years left on that). In retrospect they did not compensate me enough to make that restriction worthwhile, especially as my duties in no way related to software development.
You may not have an account for yourself, but a friendly company could publish your software.
And I would think that such a restriction would not be legal. I know that due to “anti-poaching” agreements (yeah right), Other companys are supposed to agree not to hire you for some period of time, and that Apple themselves may not hire you back for a while either. But if you were a contractor, then I don’t think (not a lawyer), that they can deny you from making money selling software, unless said software used intellectual property you acquired at Apple
I didn’t work for Apple, but the company that did lay me off, wouldn’t hire me back for a year (I lost out on a number of opportunities), but there was no restriction place on me about anything else I could or could not do. and it did involve IT technical expertise.
LOL… .have the wife get an account 
Talking to the review board is like talking to the wall.
I did removed those apps which they claimed was in violation of the Design Spam long before these update. But the review board claims that I violated their Design Spam and said that I did not address the issue and they brought up all the apps which are no longer listed on the App Store Connect or in the store and said I did not address the consolidation which they requested.
I am not sure how I can delete what is no longer available in the store.
You next step is to write a letter to Tim Cook and complain, make sure you detail the dates of conversation.
All the time continuing to work on building up your business outside the App Store.
[quote=431153:@Sam Rowlands]You next step is to write a letter to Tim Cook and complain, make sure you detail the dates of conversation.
All the time continuing to work on building up your business outside the App Store.[/quote]
Thanks. I’ve replied with screenshots of the App Store Connect to show the compliance and wait a few days for the review team to reply while I craft the email to Tim Cook.
You may want to investigate the Amazon App Store. It is smaller than the MAS, but at least, you will not have to contempt with crazy reviewers. They also have Windows apps in there, without the cumbersome process necessary in the Windows Store.
It’s not that the apps are listed in the store, it’s that they exist. The apps seem to be single-function, “one-trick ponies”, named in no particularly unique way with not very unique icons. This is what they mean by design spam and I’m assuming they have flagged you.
Your EULA page mentions iRedSoft. I Googled and found your website in blue with exact same products. This is design spam.
It sucks that you’ve been rejected, but I’m sorry to say that, with this business model, you’re unlikely to see a reversal.
[quote=431221:@Gavin Smith]It’s not that the apps are listed in the store, it’s that they exist. The apps seem to be single-function, “one-trick ponies”, named in no particularly unique way with not very unique icons. This is what they mean by design spam and I’m assuming they have flagged you.
Your EULA page mentions iRedSoft. I Googled and found your website in blue with exact same products. This is design spam.
It sucks that you’ve been rejected, but I’m sorry to say that, with this business model, you’re unlikely to see a reversal.
[/quote]
Gavin,
What’s sold on my website doesn’t reflect the same apps currently sold on the Mac App Store. There are currently only 7 apps available on the Mac App Store. Some do exist once but they have been removed.
Are you saying that what I sold independently on my own website would affect the Mac App Store listing too ?
The apps in the stores are
- BATCH TIFF & PDF Converter
- CM Batch Photo Processor
- CM Batch MMedia Date Changer
- Memory Pictures
- Memory Pictures Viewer
- Giving Thanks
- Magic Sort List
You could check the App Store using this link
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/batch-tiff-pdf-converter/id997636311?ls=1&mt=12
The rest only lives on my website
[quote=431224:@Edwin Lau]Gavin,
What’s sold on my website doesn’t reflect the same apps currently sold on the Mac App Store. There are currently only 6 apps available on the Mac App Store. Some do exist once but they have been removed.
The apps in the stores are
- BATCH TIFF & PDF Converter
- CM Batch Photo Processor
- CM Batch MMedia Date Changer
- Memory Pictures
- Memory Pictures Viewer
- Giving Thanks
The rest only lives on my website[/quote]
Like I said, I’m guessing you’ve been flagged. Apple will see this business model as “design spam”. Whether this is fair or right, wasn’t my point or my judgement, as I haven’t tried any of your apps. I’m simply trying to give you another perspective other than “Apple sucks”.
I am trying my best to do right by Apple. I am not saying they suck, it is their store and they have the right to change the policies over time.
Of course when they flagged as Design Spam, I removed the apps from the store, try what I can to consolidate the features into the several unique apps.
In any case, the app in question is back in review. Hopefully we can close this chapter and move on from there.
Thank you for your point of view.
The app update just got approved. All it took was for me to remove PNG and JPEG support for this app and it worked.
I am glad to hear that you got approved and can move forwards. I seriously question how on earth that removing support for file formats can be deemed a good thing by the review team.
This app in question does tiff and PDF and one of the feature was that it can merge several documents or images to one of the said format. It does support extraction to png and jpeg too.
They assume that feature resembles one of the feature of my photo app which handles jpeg and png but doesn’t do multipage tiff and pdf. So thought the two apps were in violation of the design spam.
Removing the png and jpg support makes the app dissimilar as there is no duplication in features so that got them out of the violation. Silly reasoning but it is their store and their rules applies.
Glad it’s over. Time to work on something else.
Thanks for your assistance.