Skip The Humor in your App Store Descriptions; Apple Doesn't Like It

By
On February 24, 2009

lolcat.png Never Odd or Even LLP – a UK-based development shop – decided to get all funny when submitting their Instant New York app to the iTunes App Store.

In a rather critical bug-fix update, they listed the following benefits:

– Editorial database updated
– Broken images fixed
– Extra dragons

(In case the point is missed, their app has nothing to do with dragons and does not contain any.)

Apple duly replied:

To review your application for the App Store, we need to be able to verify features as outlined in the release notes. Please respond to this email and clarify the phrase “Extra dragons”.

In short, it led to a week’s delay in rolling out a critical bug-fix update to their customers – not a great PR event. So, they’ve learnt a lesson so we don’t have to.. skip the humor. The iTunes Store approval folks aren’t fans.

0 responses to “Skip The Humor in your App Store Descriptions; Apple Doesn't Like It”

  1. Gary Fung says:

    Submit and then change to your heart’s content.

  2. john says:

    this doesn’t surprise me… when submitting an iPhone app update, the testers use the same list that goes to the public as a sort of “checklist”. often, i’ve found QA people to be very literal. in submitting apps, it has always struck me as odd to directly publish this list to the public. it seems sometimes that you might not want to detail every boring fix or enhancement to the public, but only hit the high points. problem would be solved by having two seperate fields (one as testing notes and one as “new in this release”).