I'm desperate because my app has been rejected for following reason:
4.4.Location data can only be used when directly relevant to the features and services provided by the App to the user or to support approved advertising uses
What does it mean exactly?
My app is designed for an event.
It has a module: when the user opens it a map is displayed and multiple pins are shown to indicate the important places of the event to navigate to them - switching to Apple Maps (such as Congress Venue, Hotels fore the delegates, Conference Gala Dinner..)
The Apple review team hast rejected the app because... I can't understand why!
I've tried to explain the reviewer that this functionality is important for the app. He replays by pasting and copying the same answer he already gave me with an attached screenshot where the app asks for the user authorization to get his location..
What is the problem with geo location?
Some more explanation?
Related
I keep getting my iOS app submission rejected by apple with the following message:
Guideline 5.1.2 - Legal - Privacy - Data Use and Sharing
The app privacy information you provided in App Store Connect still
indicates you collect data in order to track the user, including User
ID and Product Interaction. However, you do not use App Tracking
Transparency to request the user's permission before tracking their
activity.
Starting with iOS 14.5, apps on the App Store need to receive the
user’s permission through the AppTrackingTransparency framework before
collecting data used to track them. This requirement protects the
privacy of App Store users.
Next Steps
Here are two ways to resolve this issue:
If you do not currently track, or decide to stop tracking, update your app privacy information in App Store Connect. You must have the
Account Holder or Admin role to update app privacy information.
If you track users, you must implement App Tracking Transparency and request permission before collecting data used to track. When you
resubmit, indicate in the Review Notes where the permission request is
located.
Resources
Tracking is linking data collected from your app with third-party data for advertising purposes, or sharing the collected data with a
data broker. Learn more about tracking.
See Frequently Asked Questions about the new requirements for apps that track users.
Learn more about designing appropriate permission requests.
I already updated my app not to use any IDFA calls (including all the facebook and other SDKs) https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidentifiermanager/1614151-advertisingidentifier
When I try to set the checkboxes in App Privacy section of the app they can't be completely uncheck (i.e. at least one of the options has to be selected) so I can't state that my app is no using device id even though the codebase doesn't make advertisingidentifier at all.
Does App Tracking Transparency really mean that we can't track anything, even user clicks on buttons and screen views???? If so that's insane!
The main issue is that I want to have a better user experience for my users by not showing them an unnecessary ATT prompt.
You need to do the following 2 things:
Update the Data Types section to remove the Device Id. You can find it on the top of the privacy section, then hit Edit, navigate through till the last Nexts and uncheck the Device Id
Update the User ID and Product Interaction sections to uncheck - No, we do not track the user. You can find it at the end of the privacy section, then hit Edit, navigate through till the lastNexts and uncheck the above-mentioned box.
Submit the app again for review.
We were facing same issue when we removed Tracking from application and NSUserTrackingUsageDescription key from app.
Our app was already live on store with tracking enabled. In new version we faced this issue. When app was rejected we just replied them that we are not using this anymore in our application so we removed tracking authentication popup. We also told them that we were not able to update in App privacy because live version have tracking enabled.
After that reply they approved.
Sample Answer to apple when we removed from existing app:
"we have removed NSUserTrackingUsageDescription and tracking from this version, so we also removed Tracking Permission Popup from this version. We tried to remove it from App Privacy, but we could not change the Privacy data types in the Appstore connect because the current live version does use that permission. Please review our request and approve our application submission"
The recent WWDC state that about iOS 14:
With iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14, you will need to receive the
user’s permission through the AppTrackingTransparency framework to
track them or access their device’s advertising identifier. Tracking
refers to the act of linking user or device data collected from your
app with user or device data collected from other companies’ apps,
websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising
Reference: User Privacy and Data Use
As per this guidelines, We need to ask the user for tracking permission using ATTrackingManager (AppTrackingTransparency) framework.
I have a few apps on AppStore, Which is using Google AdMob & FBAudienceNetwork to deliver ads to the user.
Question:
What's happen if I don't upgrade these apps as per the last WWDC guidelines? Is app continue ads serving to the user?
What's happening if User doesn't give tracking permission to the app?
App update does make any impact on revenue from ads?
Try to answer this question respected to ads serving, revenue and impact of App Tracking Transparency
Below are all references which I had referred already.
User Privacy and Data Use
App Tracking Transparency
Google AdMob
Google AdMob : Implementation
AdSupport
The firstly, i want to talk about the IDFA:
The Identity for Advertisers (IDFA) is the individual and random identifier used by Apple to identify and measure iOS user devices.
Bellow IOS14, Every AdNetworks use IDFA for defund a specific user, then They use IDFA to be used to deliver personalized ads to user. so IDFA help the AdNetworks can show related ads to our users.
In IOS 14, the IDFA is hidden and you and adnetwork can't get this IDFA, You must to ask user to allow tracking permission to continue use IDFA in IOS 14 system.
So my answers are:
Question 1: What's happen if I don't upgrade these apps as per the last WWDC guidelines? Is app continue ads serving to the user?
The short answers is YES, Your app still continue ads serving to the user. BUTTTTTT: the Adnetwork will do not know anythings about your user, so all ads will be random and unrelated ads
-> clickRate will be reduced -> eCPM will be reduced -> Your revenue will be down too.
Question 2: What's happen if User doesn't give tracking permission to the app?
Like the my answer 1 when user don't allow tracking permission, you can't get IDFA then Your revenue will be down again..
But in this case, Apple created an another choose for Us and Networks. that is SKAdNetwork which helps advertisers measure the success of ad campaigns while maintaining user privacy. But Nobody can make sure this API will better current IDFA System can make. So you should enable SKAdNetwork to track conversions in tracking don't allow case. To get maximum profit
Question 3: App update does make any impact on revenue from ads?
If your user allow the tracking permission, everything is OKAY like nothing happen. If not, you have the SKAdNetwork and let pray for SKAdNetwork will work nice like The Apple said.
Question 4: What is Funding Choices?
Funding Choices is the Google'Tool to help you to ask user allow tracking permission. Funding Choices and SDK UMP will create the explainer message alert which will automatically be shown immediately before the "Tracking permission" alert.
This is automatically and simple. If you don't like Funding Choices, you can create your explainer message yourself to ask user before the "tracking permission" alert is shown
This is all my knowledges after 3 days researching and working about IDFA, IOS14.....
I hope them can help you something. If i had any mistake, reply here!!!. Thanks
The current version my app (pre-iOS 14) is still showing ads, but ad revenue has HALVED since iOS was released. So yes, it seems ad revenue is impacted if you don't implement App Tracking Transparency (ATT).
I have updated my app WITHOUT ATT and Apple now rejects my app. Even though I share no user data with the AdMob framework, disabled location tracking and IAP tracking for AdMob.
So basically my app does not track anything other than the IDFA used by AdMob and Apple rejects it.
My advice would be to implement ATT if you are using Admob. If you don't do that, revenue will decrease and Apple will reject future app updates.
No IDFA means no personalized ads. Because all publishers over the years has build whole advertising services based on IDFA/GAID. Without IDFA you advertisers will not be able to run re-targeting campaigns or narrow targeting options to find target user group.
So you will receive less ads, and those you will see will have low CPM value. So your app will be flooded with cheap/poor quality ads.
You can learn more on my blog article
i have published my ios app in appstore and app is still in review today i got email from apple that your app has been rejected. This is the issue they listed down below but i dont understand what is the issue.
We found that your app is not appropriate for the World storefront because it is a custom app designed specifically for Kulsum International Hospital, whose users are in Pakistan.
At this time, Pakistan is not part of the Volume Purchase Program.
Please revise your app to set the storefront to Pakistan.
can anyone help to get rid of this issue please. Thanks
The message clearly states that you need to limit your app to Pakistan's storefront.
To do so : Go to the Pricing tab of your app and you will find a link to select the stores where to publish your app.
More details on this answer : Limit App to specific countries
On the other hand and if you app should not be restricted to Pakistan, you can reply to the rejection with proofs that the users might come from abroad.
I recently submitted a multiplayer trivia app to the app store. There are 2 versions of the app but they are essentially the same thing just for different trivia.
One app was accepted but the other rejected
Here is the rejected reason
17.2 Details
We noticed that your app requires users to register to access non account-based features. Apps cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app content and features that are not associated specifically to the user.
My app has followed the process that is similar to other major apps like trivia crack and words with friends.
The user gets a screen to sign in with facebook or sign in with email. When they click on sign in with email it brings them to a screen where they enter their email. We then create an account for them in the app.
This is required so that we can keep track of the user in each of the games they are playing and who they are playing against we also keep stats for that user based on how many questions they get wrong and how many right, also how many wins. We are storing all of this on our webserver so that the user can also use his account on a different device so that they can play their games on their iphone, ipad, ipod and so on.
We ask for nothing other than email, and if we dont have them register then we cant maintain all this information for them, especially if moving from device to device. Again, this is how almost ALL other larger multiplayer apps in the store do it. I mimicked them exactly.
I dont get it. Plus, one reviewer accepted one of the apps and another rejected the other app.
Should I appeal?
Yes, you can appeal.
You can explain your position to reviewer, we had similar problem and after we've created appellation application was published.
I've built an app which depends heavily on downloading data from a server. This data only has value within a specific area. The server will only have data for one city to start with (and it's not Cupertino), so unless the app approver person is physically in that city, they'll get no data. (The app still works in this case, but it's terribly uninteresting). Is that grounds for rejection? If not, how would Apple know if the app works or not?
TIA,
-Mike
Ok, now that you've all had a chance to comment, this is what I did to solve this little dilemma.
I added a "Drop Pin" feature to allow the user to pretend to go anywhere on the map that they wanted to. Then I just used that lat/lon from the UIMapView to query for data.
Edit:
Here is where you can explain these circumstances to the app review team:
From "App Store Submission Tips - Providing Additional Info for the App Review Process
"
If your application requires specific settings, user registrations or account information prior to submission to the App Store, be sure to include that info in the field "Demo Account - Full Access" on iTunes Connect. This is a text field visible only to the App Review team, so the information entered in that field will not be viewable on iTunes to the general public. You can also include general instructions or other relevant information about your application which you think would be useful for the review process.