Apple rejects my app update due to Corona! What now?
My latest update for iOS got rejected! Ironically, the only feature I added is "Login with Apple"...
What happened?
page91 is an app to improve your Spanish with news articles. One very dominant topic in the recent months is obviously the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most of my articles mention the virus slightly, and there are 1-2 articles which really cover the pandemic. Apple claims that I am not allowed to do any of that.
Their feedback:
As previously mentioned, since the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis, all information related to it are considered to be part of the healthcare industry.
In addition, the seller and company names associated with your app are not from a recognized institution, such as a governmental entity, hospital, insurance company, non-governmental organization, or university.
To resolve this issue, your app must be published under a seller and company name of a recognized institution. Alternatively, you may want to remove this content from your app.
The example they sent me is the following article: "Sea Water Analytics: aprovechar el confinamiento para medir el estado de las playas" (The start up called Sea Water Analytics is using the confinement period to measure the quality of beaches)
My humble opinion on that: the article has nothing todo with healthcare. Sea Water Analytics is simply analyzing the beach quality in a time without tourists and this article is telling about the startup and their methods. Corona is only mentioned because that is the reason why there are no tourists...
According to that logic any news app would be forbidden by now. The discussion with Apple is now going forth and back for a few days. I have no idea how to continue now. If I remove all articles which slightly mention Corona, I would be without articles...
PS: in my other post about firebase, many told me about the disadvantages of vendor lock-in. Now, I am experiencing that myself. Only that there are alternatives for Firebase but none for Apple :|
