My app is a catalog of ebook-like content. Some of which are free to read, and some other are paid. I need to ask for user email / password to be able to retain the information of which content was successfuly completed, or until which chapter it was completed so the user can have his information synced accross all platforms.
However I got this rejection message :
Apps cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app
content and features that are not associated specifically to the user.
Next Steps
User registration that requires the sharing of personal information
must be optional or tied to account-specific functionality.
To resolve this issue, please make it clear to the user that
registering will enable them to access the content from any of their
iOS devices and provide them a way to register at any time, if they
wish to later extend access to additional iOS devices.
Please note that although guideline 3.1.2 of the App Store Review
Guidelines requires an app to make subscription content available to
all the iOS devices owned by a single user, it is not appropriate to
force user registration to meet this requirement; such user
registration must be made optional.
Please resolve 5.1.1 issue and resubmit your revised binary to iTunes
Connect.
I am very surprised as I know apps such as Feedly which do not allow you to subscribe to RSS feed unless you create an account.
How should I get this problem solved ?
I have faced the similar rejection. As per the guide lines app is not supposed to force registration. So I ended up adding a skip button on the registration page. You need to add some content that users can view without registration. For example a user can preview a FREE book (maybe first page only) but can't read the full book without registration.
You can keep asking user for registration later when user is browsing the content.
There are some apps with forced registration and are available in AppStore like WhatsApp. But you need very strong arguments to convince Apple review team to consider and it's only possible if your app is really can't work without registration. In your case I don't think that's true.
For registration and login, your app must Serve contents/data user wise. e.g. Specific user settings, profile or follow topics etc. If your app does such things then Apple wont have any problems for your login or registration.
This is because of some apps have Registrations just to collect the email addresses of users.
If i will add "Guide" screen, then this issue will be resolved or not!
Related
My iOS app update just got declined due to the fact that we are prompting users to register before they purchase a subscription.
Guideline 5.1.1 - Legal - Privacy - Data Collection and Storage
We noticed that your app requires users to register with personal information to purchase non account-based in-app purchase products, which does not comply with the App Store Review Guidelines.
Apps cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app content and features that are not associated specifically to the user.
Next Steps
User registration that requires the sharing of personal information must be optional or tied to account-specific functionality.
To resolve this issue, please make it clear to the user that registering will enable them to access the content from any of their iOS devices and provide them a way to register at any time, if they wish to later extend access to additional iOS devices.
Please note that although guideline 3.1.2 of the App Store Review Guidelines requires an app to make subscription content available to all the iOS devices owned by a single user, it is not appropriate to force user registration to meet this requirement; such user registration must be made optional.
Ok.... I understand they are trying to make the best experience for the user, but the final requirement seems contradicting.
Does anyone know how I'm supposed to provide the subscription content available to all iOS devices for a single user, without requiring them to create a user? How can I make content available to the user across all of their devices if there is no user account?
This is directly related to apple updating their guidelines.
Apps that authenticate or set up user accounts must support Sign in with Apple if required by guideline 4.8 of the App Store Review Guidelines.
I’m not exactly sure when they made this update. But I recurved and email on 3/27/2020 stating that they had extended the deadline for apps to implement this change until 6/30/2020
I want to let users of my iPhone app invite people from their contacts to a group they're creating. I can use deeplinks for people that already have the app installed to have an invitation automatically show up, but I was wondering if I can somehow pass custom information to someone downloading the app for the first time so after they initially open the app they'll have an invite waiting.
As far as I can tell this is impossible but I was wondering if there's any other way to somehow associate a contact with that person making an account on their own device. My application uses gmail authentication for account creation so if everybody had each other's gmails saved in their contact this might be possible, but that's not the case unfortunately. If I could get a user's phone number then it would be easy but I know that's not allowed without specifically asking the user.
Does anybody know if it's possible to do something like deeplinking for people installing the app for the first time?
You can do this with Google Firebase Dynamic Links. Google has a guide for this here:
https://firebase.google.com/docs/dynamic-links/
If I understand the question correctly, here is what I'd do:
Scenario: Send Invite
If the email invited by a user is a registered email, done.
If the email invited by user is not a registered email, store it in a separate table (pending invites)
Scenario: Sign up/ Sign in
User registers using email, store user information.
When the user logs in, check if email exists in pending invites table, if exists, present invitation.
Delete user from pending invites table
Not sure if you have it already but you might need a db table to keep the invitations sent by your users.
What you're describing is called Deferred Deep Linking (Deep Linking refers to using a link to open your app directly to a specific piece of content, and Deferred means that it works even if the app isn't installed first).
As you noted, there's no native way to accomplish this on either iOS or Android. URL schemes don't work, because they always fail with an error if the app isn't installed. Apple's newer Universal Links in iOS 9+ get closer in that they at least don't trigger an error if the app isn't installed, but you'd still have to handle redirecting the user from your website to the App Store. You can't pass context through to the app after install with Universal Links, so you wouldn't be able to present the invitation. Additionally. Universal Links actually aren't supported in a lot of places.
To make this work, you need a remote server to close the loop. You can build this yourself, but you really shouldn't for a lot of reasons (not the least of which being you have more important things to do). Free services like Branch.io (full disclosure: Branch is so awesome I work there) and Firebase Dynamic Links are designed to solve exactly this requirement, and can handle all of the backend infrastructure for deferred deep linking so you don't have to. From your perspective, as the developer, you'll seamlessly get exactly the same data to work with whether or not the app was installed when the link was clicked.
Apple developers rejected my app with this reason.
"Business - 3.1.1
Your app includes an account registration feature, which is considered an access to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app.
This feature does not comply with the App Store Review Guidelines.
Next Steps
Please remove the account registration links and any other fully qualified links to your site that could indirectly provide access to these mechanisms, such as links to web pages for support, FAQ, product or program details, etc."
The users can use the app in demo mode (without registration) with some restrictions, but if they register they can use without registrations.
The registration is not in webview. The client sends the user's datas to server.
Can someone help me?
You basically have two ways to solve the problem.
1) Sell the subscription etc. only through the App Store in the app (similar to Dropbox/Office etc.), i.e. there should be no links to your website, where your users have/can insert payment information. Look at the mentioned examples, how they solve this.
2) Only sell the subscription/services via the web, but never ever link to these pages via your app (similar to Kindle app, partially Spotify).
Your app must still be somehow (open for interpretation) functional for users without a subscription / registration.
The main issue Apple has, is that it's possible to circumvent the store and Apple's 30% cut. Just make sure that users are not able to purchase any digital products & services
Apps may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than IAP.
Source:
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#payments
Yes, You can submit app again but you have to implement one small feature like as guest user login.
In this You will implement one UIButton it's should say "Go without login". Implement this small functionality in your app. Create one user as guest.
When user hit "Go without login" you will pass your static user id and login in the app.
I have same problem. I am create a this solution and it's work
I got my app rejected because it had a registration form that required too much information that the app never used. The simplest solution would be be to remove the registration and just let the user login inside the app (it can also be used without login but with less functionalities). What I was thinking was to remove the registration button and just add an UILabel where I tell the users that if they want to register they can visit the site (I won't provide a link for registration).
Does anyone know if my app is going to get rejected again just for telling the user to register on the site?
This is the reason Apple review team gave me:
17.2 Details
We noticed that your app requires users to register with personal
information. Apps cannot require users to enter personal information
that is not relevant to the app features.
We've attached screenshot(s) for your reference.
The screenshot was of the registration form that required some informations that weren't used inside the app.
The message in App Store Review Guidlines is quite clear:
Apps that require users to share personal information, such as email address and date of birth, in order to function will be rejected
which, of course does not stop you from asking for it while letting the user register, however - you MUST have a good reason for it, like:
Apps may ask for date of birth (or use other age-gating mechanisms) only for the purpose of complying with applicable children's privacy statutes, but must include some useful functionality or entertainment value regardless of the user's age
OR
Apps that include account registration or access a user’s existing account must include a privacy policy or they will be rejected
So my guess is that they think your registration is slightly fishy. I would suggest really making sure that the reasons for collecting that personal information are very visible to the Apple reviewers. They probably thought that your reasons for collecting a lot of info from the user is unnecessary for what your app does.
My recommendation is - take out what you don't really need and justify why you need what you're asking your users for and let Apple know in the notes for the reviewer.
I have a website which offers (FREE) account based services. Iam working on a iphone app for the site. Can somebody help me with these questions?
1) Registration: In my case, the app is meaningless without an account/registration (all free). There is a lot of chatter in the internet that apps that do not offer a "registration-free" experience will be rejected. (example : http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/08/version-2-2-rejected-new-rejection-reason-from-apple-may-have-major-implications/) Thoughts?
2) Email Verification: On my website, a user has to "Verify his email" before he can login.
Basically, can I do this one time only thing in my app: (a) ask email -> register (b) ask user to copy verification token in email & paste in the app (c) Hit verify & let them inside the app upon success. Is this alright?
3) Is it against Apple's rules if the iphone app only supports existing users(who already signed up via website & have a user name password)? This way I need not worry about 1 & 2 for now & still have a full fledged app.
Please note that I have read the guidelines but still cannot come to a conclusion.
I am aware that "will Apple reject my app" - is a question nobody can answer
All I am looking for is your opinion based on your prior experiance & your interpretation of guidelines. Thanks much.
UPDATE: To all users who land here: Apple approved my app few weeks ago. All I did is explain(in review notes) that my app is truly account based & would be meaningless without an email. On my home screen, I have 2 buttons, "I have an account" & "Create an account". There is no registration free experience other than a series of graphics focused on "what is " & indirectly emphasizes that it is an account based appln. Apple seem to be convinced & approved the app the first go. Hope it helps.
I made an app that sounds very similar to yours. I host some websites that are basically forums (they require registration). So my app is an app that allows the user (once they have logged in) to read, post, edit profile etc. Without logging in they get nothing, they see a login screen/Signup button. Which takes them to a form to sign up, it then sends out an email and they approve it via the link it then allows them to login. So as you pointed out No one can really tell you if your app will be rejected or by apple, but my app was very similar to yours and made it through just fine. Also think about a service like Spotify, gmail, or facebook. They require the user to login/register before the app works at all. I believe these rejections dont come from the fact that they are requiring users to login, but they are making it difficult for them to login in or they did not have a website that this was tied to, they just want the user to login to use the app. Its a very fine line, and again apple will be the judge of this in the end.
*Apple very well could have changed this since I submitted my app, but this is just my experience.
In general this sounds fine. The most important piece of advice I can give you is to make sure that you create an account for the reviewers to use - use the 'review notes' box to give them a login and password so they can type it straight into the app. You'll probably get rejected if you don't do this (reviewers dont' have time to check out your site, sign up, wait for the email, click .. etc).
EDIT: Also you should ensure there's a link to the registration page on the web from the front-page of your app (or at least somewhere very obvious).
If your submitted iOS app requires email verification from within the app for the app to function, this sounds it could very likely be a strong reason for a rejection by Apple (apps are not allowed to require personal identifying information.)
If your app requires a pre-existing login/password, and you give Apple a pre-existing fully functional working login for review purposes, what any user has to do to get this login outside and before running your app may be outside Apple's purview (for instance, joining some club or professional organization, opening a bank account, etc.).
But the only way to know for sure is to submit an app for review by Apple.
Our empirical knowledge is that we had submitted a fully featured app with more then one reasen to get rejected. One of them was, of course, that we enclose a way to get balnce in the app without using the IAP (https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/) from apple. That thing was a killer. I think, because of this feature, the reviewers told us even more reasons to get rejected. One was the signup button in the login screen. After we disabled the topup and the signup feature, the review was fine and we're happy and online. Since that rejection, over a year ago, we had never tried to enable signup and upload it again. Now, we'll do that and I will report here what is happaning...
Update #Ravi Jul 31 at 16:18
It's like what I said! We're now online with a singup button at the start screen of the app. Apple does not disallow it. FYI