Iphone - clarification on app rejection guidelines

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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).

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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