If you’ve always wanted to know how the 500 “human experts” who make up the App Store review team are equipped, the document Apple provided during the lawsuit against Epic Games gives a good idea.
Even more seriously, this document regarding listening to Trystan Kosmynka, Senior Marketing Manager, contains very few interesting numbers about the performance of the store validation team. In 2019, for example, 4.8 million apps were submitted to the App Store, versus 1.7 million rejections (36%). This represents about 100,000 applications submitted each week on average.
The Apple executive said that about 215,000 app rejections were motivated by a violation The guidelines. Every application goes through a static and dynamic analysis process to discover potential problems (use of special APIs, violation of rules). We also learn about having a step aimed at identifying clones.
In this regard, Kosmynka said that in 2015 Apple bought SourceDNA, whose technology could identify malware and malicious code in malicious apps..
Then comes the humane treatment of the apps. When an application is rejected, the developer is contacted, and he can resubmit the application after required repairs or appeal the decision. According to Kosmynka, 1% of developers embark on this process with uncertain results.
