Outdated vs. Complete Apps ⇥ vivqu.com
And still, I was surprised to receive an App Review message. I hadn’t submitted a new update for WorldAnimals. The app was still working well, with zero crashes and a handful of new downloads every month. My boss had even shown me last week that he had downloaded my app on his phone for his daughter – we played the game together during a work meeting and laughed at the silly animal sounds. In my mind, there was no reason I should be receiving a vaguely threatening message from Apple’s App Review system.
Well, it turns out, Apple’s problem with my app was the fact that I wasn’t updating it.
Via Michael Tsai:
The undocumented “minimum download threshold” seems to be saying that you can buy lots of App Store search ads to be exempt from the requirement to have an updated app — then you’re welcome to inflict it on lots of users.
Users of Apple’s products would probably benefit more from a crackdown on scams and brand name apps that flout App Store rules than removing perfectly fine apps just because they do not get enough monthly downloads or have not been updated in a while.