For years I have been, secretly and sometime publicly, one of this people that thought the Apple was fine. It gave developers the reach they needed to potentially get to millions of customers, and the 30% that changed for the privilege was fine. That was until this week and my eyes were opened to the stress and hassle needed.

I’m not a developer by any means, I’m getting an app for micro.blog that I used for a few months ready for other people and it’s been harder than I ever expected. I’m not even charging any money for this thing but I think I might have to just to get something back for my time. In the interests of transparency these are the reasons Micro Social is not in the App Store currently.

8/02/25

Guideline 1.2 - Safety - User-Generated Content

The app contains user content, I I have to show that the user agrees to terms and conditions at sign in. They also must be able to flag content they don’t like.

Solution: users must now agree to the micro.blog terms or service, community guidelines and privacy policy at sign in. They have also have always been able to report content to micro.blog as well as block users and mute users and keywords.

Apple Response: issue still exists.

🥲

Guideline 2.1 - Performance

When users tap on “Premium” in settings nothing happens.

Solution: This is not a button dummie, but I’ve removed it anyway.

**Apple Response: ** Where did the button go that did nothing.

Guideline 4.0 - Design

User is taken to the web to sign up for an account. We don’t like this.

Solution: I was wrong to think a user being able to sign up for Micro.blog is a useful feature. Removed the button and link.

Apple Response: User is taken to the web to sign up.

Even though they are not, because that feature doesn’t exist.

Guideline 5.1.1(v) - Data Collection and Storage

The app supports account creation but does not include an option to initiate account deletion.

Solution: There is no way for me to offer account deletion through the API, so account creation is removed.

Apple Response: Why can’t we delete our account.

That’s actually my account dummies, so don’t delete that.

Frustrating

I can’t stress how annoying this is. I submitted the app on Friday evening thinking I’d have a few issues to sort and as it stands the app is still not available despite all issues being sorted. I’ve had to remove several features because Apple don’t like other different features which is downright stupid.