Summary

John Gruber covers the App Store rejection of Dark Hours, an astronomy app for iOS that was incorrectly flagged as astrology content. The reviewer apparently confused astronomy with astrology — two fields differentiated by just two letters — and rejected the app. What makes the situation Kafkaesque is that when the developer escalated, the App Review Board upheld the rejection by claiming the app contains 'a live tarot reading feature,' which it does not. Gruber uses the case to indict Apple's App Review as a broken, unaccountable system where obvious errors are not corrected but instead doubled down on. He argues the rejection harms not just the developer but Apple itself, which should be championing exactly this kind of polished, native, iOS-first app.

Key Insight

Apple's App Review is not merely inconsistent — it is a broken system that compounds errors rather than correcting them, harming the very platform it exists to protect.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 9

  But that's not what happened at all. Godier proceeded through a series of escalations up to the App Review Board and the Review Board responded that they determined the original rejection was valid because, I shit you not, 'We understand that the app includes a live tarot reading feature.'

• 5

  It's straight out of Kafka.

• 8

  Mistakes happen. But in a functioning system mistakes get corrected, and mistakes as obvious as this one get corrected almost instantly and include a quick apology for the conflation. The App Store is not a functioning system.

• 4

  It doesn't just belong in the category of astronomy apps in the App Store, it will raise the quality bar for astronomy apps in the App Store.

• 6

  This isn't just contrary to the benefit of developers, like Godier. It's obviously contrary to the benefit of Apple itself.

• 5

  Dark Hours is not just merely unrelated to astrology (let alone tarot-card reading). It's actually exquisitely well-designed and painstakingly crafted.

• 6

  Even if Apple's App Store reviewer misread the submission's description, and wrongly assumed it was yet another quack astrology app, if they launched it and spent just a few seconds poking around, they should have instantly recognized their incorrect assumption.

Tone

outraged, sardonic