Test Flight was bought by a third-party and hit us hard when we wanted to distribute our app for beta testing after the acquisition. As a result, we internally developed an in-house ad hoc distribution system to accommodate users that we personally invited to try our app prior to submitting the product for final review by the app store. The UDID collection step coupled with the provisioning profile re-creation has greatly hindered our ability to test our app with our growing beta tester community. We have developed in the dark for quite some time and it has made us weary of the apple store. Even now that Test Flight was recently bought by Apple, there are functional bugs in the software that make it a pain to work with still.

Apple Push Notification is also a nightmare. And there are aspect ratio requirements for promo videos that are nontrivial to deal with as well as the design and paperwork that surrounds app submission. The guidelines and process for submission are extensive, convoluted, and unclear. There is frankly too much overhead to get an app on the apple store. You have to be 100% dedicated to it and you will still probably fall short because lack of clear documentation. Why are we relying on the Apple Store, again? Web app distribution is looking very appetizing.

I did not know how frustrating it would be to develop on the iOS platform. I think that the next time we create an app it will first be for web, then Android, and then iOS.

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Working so hard and long with my team on the iOS version of this app has got me wrestling with the idea of taking on outside investment in order to pay the team and grow the team according to our growth targets. Working unpaid for 6 months is a lot to ask anyone, even college students. These guys have bought into the vision and it is time that I put money where their hearts and minds are. I will put together a presentation to marry that passion with investors’ pockets.

12.5.14 – We got rejected from the Apple Store for using Facebook login without also including, in Apple’s own words, “significant account-based features of Facebook.” Apparently, it violates the store guidelines to include sites strictly for identity verification purposes without “providing entertainment value to the user as well.”

Apple continues to fall on my naughty software list.

12.6.14 – Rejection. FB profile pics do not constitute a “significant account-based feature of Facebook.” Also,  “In addition, it would be appropriate to implement a login feature so that users who have previously registered do not have to register again.” That’s a new one, and the idea of the app is that once you login you can never logout unless you delete the app. The idea is to make the individual device the enabler, not the user credentials…