DROPULAR IPHONE APP “REJECTED” BY APPLE.

Story by Andreas Pihlström aka SUPRB

This post will describe my experience with Apple and it’s iPhone Developer Team, while trying to get my Dropular app approved. Dropular can best be described as an online media bookmarking tool. You can share your favorite images, videos and links found on the net. The site has about 400-600 posts plus 10000-15000 unique visitors a day. Similar sites are Buamai and Ffffound (both great resources). Anyways, in April 2009, I decided to start learning Obj-C and downloaded the iPhone SDK and started to Google my way through tutorials, answers and samples. That resulted, a month later (May), in the first Dropular iPhone browser app ever made. When the product was finished, I uploaded it to Apple’s “iTunes

Connect” for approval. Hours.. days.. weeks passed and finally I heard back from Apple — “Rejected”. Their motivation was (quoted from their e-mail sent to me): “…it contains inappropriate sexual content and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states: “Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.” Please refer to the attached images for examples:”

The three images above are what they sent me. And, take a look at the 3rd image. I mean… come on… Ok, the Dropular iPhone app got rejected, but meanwhile, my dear friend Michael Paul Young, who’s behind the wonderful site Buamai, was in the process of updating his iPhone app (also named Buamai). The main update was to add Dropular support to the app. That means, the very same content that was denied from Apple was going to be added to the Buamai app. I really did not think this update was going to get approved by Apple, but guess what — it was. I fired up the new, updated Buamai app on my iPhone, searched for “Breast” and voila, the same image popped up:

While browsing “Breast” on the Buamai app, these images also showed up, both grabbed from Dropular:

I wrote an e-mail to Apple and told them about the Buamai app update and how this app had the exact same functionality as my original Dropular app (Randomizer and Search). So basically, the Buamai app and it’s Dropular support is the exact same thing as my app that got rejected. Funny huh? I really thought Apple would get back to me fast, but no. Weeks passed and I thought about giving the whole thing the finger and trashing the app. Then all of the sudden, an e-mail from Apple showed up telling me: “Hello, We have been trying to reach you. Please respond with a valid phone so that I can call you back. You may also call me at ***-***-*****. Thank You” I replied that I was unable to call and asked why Apple wanted me to call. Silence… and two days later, the exact same auto-generated e-mail was sent to me. I never replied. On August 24th 2009 (about 2 months later), the Ffffound team successfully got their app “iFound!” approved by Apple. I bought it, browsed around and found several images of female nipples and asses… example:

Now, I re-submitted a new version of the Dropular app, which now contains a silly blacklist of keywords people can’t search for. I’ve also sent Apple an e-mail asking them politely to approve the app. Also called Apple. Apple told me the approvements were good. I also told them about the recently approved similar apps (Buamai and iFound!), but the person I talked to told me that he could not compare the Dropular app with other’s (fair enough, eventhough I didn’t quite agree) and that Apple will get back to me shortly. In October 25th, 2009 ( two month later ), I’ve e-mailed Apple asking why it takes such long to get a rejection or approval and how much time it usually takes. The answer(s) I received was: “Dear Andreas, Your application, Dropular, is requiring unexpected additional time for review. We apologize for the delay, and will update you with further status as soon as we are able. Thank you for your patience.” So, basically no rejection, no approval. But, all of the sudden, the very same auto-generated e-mail from Apple asking me to call was added to my dear inbox. By this time, I couldn’t help but smile and thought the app was doomed. But, we called and the person we spoke to, told us to re-submit the app once again (why?!), not because it has been rejected, I just needed too. I logged in to my iTunes Connect account to re-submit the app when, to my surprise, I saw the little red lamp next to the app (red lamp = rejected app). The damn application was, once again, rejected but this time without noticing me! I e-mailed Apple and asked why this has happened without my knowledge. No reply, but on October 31th, 2009, the Dropular App was approved. Here is a video put together of how the app works: