‘Sorry, You Don’t Understand’ ⇥ mjtsai.com

Bizarre back-and-forth between Piet Brauer, the developer of a GitHub app for the iPad, and Phil Schiller on Twitter, collected by Michael Tsai. In short, Brauer’s app was rejected for using a web view to allow people to sign in with GitHub because that login page — which GitHub controls — has their own registration links on it. Brauer had to inject some CSS onto the page to hide those links, and was still rejected on the same grounds:

11.13: Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy” button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected

I understand why this rule is in place — Apple doesn’t want companies to subvert their 30% cut by placing the purchasing mechanism on a webpage. But this seems like a case where the spirit of the rule should apply more than the letter of it. Even App Review thinks it’s ridiculous.