Your experiences with Apple's App Store
Hello,
I've been working on https://timelog.link, a time tracking mobile app, and after releasing the Android version on the Play Store I decided to start the process to release the iOS version.
I had heard from other iOS devs that the process can take a lot of time, specifically the app review phase which could take a few days and the app could be rejected for various reasons and you'd have to resubmit it.
I've enrolled in Apple's developer program two days ago, which they say can take up to two business days for your registration and payment to be processed. So I am already two days in and have not even submitted my app yet!
So my question to any iOS developers here is, how has your experience with the App Store been? Do you have any tips to avoid unnecessary waiting?
Thanks,
Apple makes a lot of things harder than they should be and take way longer than they should take.
You can expect up to two weeks for developer account enrollment. And up to two weeks for app reviews.
Lately the app reviews have taken only about a day but sometimes it's still longer. You can request an expedited review but you need a good reason like a critical bug fix or a time sensitive event.
Thanks for the info! The email said it takes up to two days developer account enrollment and I was wondering if I need to do something about it as it's taken longer, but I'll just wait.
The multiple day publish delay is one of the strongest reasons for not writing the majority of the app in Objective C / Swift and for using codepush (https://github.com/microsoft/code-push) heavily.
The tradeoff is easy for a lot of applications that don’t need a more native experience and it makes production deploys take seconds, not days.
The first deploy and every subsequent binary update will still have the delay but its manageable.
This is very interesting for React Native/Ionic/Cordova apps! I am using Flutter so this is not an option for me currently but it's good to know.