The developer of FlickType shared via Twitter that they are pulling their iPhone keyboard app from the App Store. They allege that this is because Apple has failed to respond to support requests and persistent update rejections.
“We tried reaching out to Apple a total of 9 times last week, with no success,” he writes in the thread. “At this point they seem to be ignoring our attempts to contact them directly, despite previously explicitly telling us to “feel free” to contact them if we need ‘further clarification’.
Our rejection history already spans more than FOURTY pages filled with repeated, unwarranted, & unreasonable rejections that serve to frustrate & delay rather than benefit end-users. And dealing with App Review isn’t just time-consuming. It’s also very emotionally draining.
FlickType via Twitter
Apple has thrown us obstacle after obstacle for years while we try to provide an app to improve people’s lives, and we can no longer endure their abuse.”
At first glance, it’s easy to feel sympathetic towards the developer but of course, this may not be the full story. Maybe the developer is right and Apple has failed to provide meaningful or constructive feedback. Or have put up obstacles and ignored contact.
In the alternative perhaps the developer is trying to use unauthorised API’s, isn’t being forthcoming about the reason for rejection or heck is just being straight-up misleading about their entire story.
It’s worth waiting to see if the story develops further before believing the developer on blind faith alone. It’s easy to gaslight an individual for sure but equally, individuals are quite capable of using exploitative language when it suits their narrative. Apple is unlikely to speak out as it still has a responsibility to protect the confidentially of its interactions with customers and developers (developers are customers too since they pay to access Apple’s tools).
If the developer wants to make accusations about Apple in a public way that’s totally up to them. But the professional thing for Apple to do is to continue to work with the developer, not comment in a public forum. It would only be appropriate to comment publicly in limited circumstances such as if the developer bought litigation proceedings against Apple.
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