The App Store Review team is a small group in Cupertino that looks at apps all day, every day. Different reviewers will focus on different things. One may reject your app because they have seen a dozen other apps exactly like it. The next reviewer may pass it because they have never seen an app like it.





They may reject you for something that has been in your app for years. Every previous reviewer did not see it as a problem but the person reviewing it today does. Here are two simple things you can do to make sure your app passes review every time, quickly and easily.

Check The Rules

The mockups for the new user profile screen look fantastic and the developers can have it ready the next sprint. Everyone knows what need to do next and the project is on track. As the team leaves the conference room energetic and full of purpose they don’t realize they are about to put a ticking bomb in the app.

After weeks of work, the app is ready. The team submits it to the store and within hours users are downloading it. Months and versions pass. 1.1. 1.1.1. 1.2. Releases become so routine that “Bug fixes and performance improvements” are the only release notes you use. The 1.5 release is ready. Press releases have already gone out. The social media marketing guys are tapping away at Twitter and trying to look useful. Then, out of nowhere comes an email from the App Store Review team:

Your app has been reviewed, but we are unable to post this version

14.3 Details Your app enables the display of user-generated content but does not have the required precautions in place.

That gorgeous user profile screen? There is no button to report profile images that are inappropriate. The designer never thought to add one when he was mocking the screen in Sketch. No one on the team pointed out the problem over the months and weeks since that first mockup.

That team meeting months before would have been a great opportunity to check the user profile screen design against the Apple’s guidelines. In every meeting have at least one printed copy of the App Store Review Guidelines available. At the end of each meeting take a few minutes with the team to study the guidelines. You will catch potential problems long before Apple’s review team will!

Provide a Map

Apple gives you a list of things they will be looking for during the review process - the App Store Review Guidelines. When you give the review team a map of where to find those things your review will be quick and painless.

At the bottom of the iTunes Connect “Prepare for Submission” page is a section titled “App Review Information”.





Pay special attention to the “Notes” field of the App Review Information. This is a tremendous opportunity to streamline your app review!

Write out a short description of how to use the app. Think of this as a summary of your QA test plan, the 10,000-foot view of how to use the app. The team at Apple is looking at how well you followed the guidelines so be sure to highlight these areas:

Places where a user may need to log in or create an account

Screens that have in-app purchase or Apple Pay

Media playback

Any user-generated content, such as uploading a photo or viewing a photo uploaded by another user. Show how a user would report or block inappropriate content.

Do the App Store Review Guidelines mention something else your app does? Make sure you cover it in the Notes

The idea here is to provide actionable information that makes it easy for the reviewer to verify that your app is following the rules. Be rigorous without writing War and Peace. Get someone to proofread it, even if that is just a quick read by a friend outside your team.