Hi! This is A Minute Of Overpass. My name is Eric and I make apps. Now this week I
want to tell you why Apple is pulling one of my apps!
Okay, so it's been quite a week. Now if you've been following me on Snapchat you
probably know about this already, but a lot of you aren't
so I'm going to kind of tell you what's happened in the past week in terms of
one of my big apps.
Now the issue is that iTunes is pulling my biggest paid app which is
called Ear Record which is actually Ear Spy Pro. It's not called
Ear Spy Pro because when I tried to release it as Ear Spy Pro 3 years ago,
they won't allow that name. They said you can't use the word spy
even though Ear Spy the free version was released and they approved it. So you know,
yeah you know if you're an app developer and you release for iPhone you know that
there's a lot of inconsistencies like this.
However, last week I got this email from...on Friday night like at midnight, you
know it's just about going up to bed and I got this email from iTunes
Connect saying "Your app
Ear Record does not comply with the app review guidelines". Now I haven't released
a new version of this in like years,
right? So I went through and you know click on the link here and went to the
resolution center and read what it says, and it just says you know we're
telling you that your app Ear Record version 1.3 which is currently on the
app store,
that they are going to go ahead and remove it because of a policy violation
and I think it might be something new where they just you know
out of the blue they just re-evaluated it and basically they say
the app concept is no longer appropriate for the app store,
more specifically they say it's marketed as being a stealth
app and because of that it kind of violates the policies of iTunes so
and that's true it is marketed that way. It's really a harmless app.
The only thing that it has over Ear Spy, the free version allows
the ability to record because that was the easiest way I could think of
to add something of value, to have a paid version and it does pretty well. So
if I show you like how it's done over like the past month,
it's 483 pounds it's made in the last month.
This is the App Annie revenue thing, so it is always nice to go through and see
this.
If I look at how much it's made all time here,
it's actually done pretty well. It's made... it gave us a cost about... it costs
less than 1,500 pounds to make. It's made me 13,000 pounds over
the last 3 years. So it's done really well.
I probably not going to go ahead and appeal this because I have
appealed this before and it's a mixed bag as to whether or not they'll let you
go through it. A lot of times I've tried to appeal things and
they just sort of, you know, they just stick with their party line or
whatever. And the reality of the situation is that, it's not
really like a free market. You're going through the iTunes store
and you have to abide by iTunes rules and
regulations. So I could go ahead and remarket this thing and reskin it and
make it into a less of a spy type thing or less of a stealth type thing, but when
they say this concept is no longer appropriate for the app store,
yeah I kind of think, well I can understand that. I was in the grey
area anyway to begin with, so this is one of the reasons why I'm not jumping
up and down and complaining and I'm thinking well you know okay that's fine.
There's not much I can say. I mean this is the kind of thing where
probably your apps will be so bad, I mean because this is really
towards the grey line. You know I like to try to push the envelope a
little bit. I think
the reason it does so well is because it has this kind of sex appeal, and you know
because people think, they put it on and I'm a spy and all this kind of
stuff. So it's done really well but the point of this week's
Minute Of Overpass.
And oh also if I show you here on iTunes Connect that was last Friday and only
yesterday that they actually remove it, actually I think that might be because
none of the apps made any money.
If I look at... I think they might be something went wrong with their
reporting today, but you know it's just a case of when you
release something to the app stores, you are not
free to do whatever you want. You are at the mercy of what iTunes or what Apple
expects on the Apple store, and on Android you're.... well if you're going to
go through Google Play only then you know what Google says that Google has
pulled some of my apps before, I mean this kind of stuff happens from time to
time. It goes back to sometimes people ask me "Is it better to have one big app?
or have lots of apps?" and I've always thought lots of apps, and when
something like this happens while it's you know it's painful I've got this
500-pound hole in my budget now each month,
you know it's not the end of the world, I mean I still got all
the ad revenue coming in, and I've got the other apps being purchased all that kind
of stuff. So I think if I had everything, if
you're going to do just one app,
I mean it's fantastic because if you know it's going to work or if you know
that it's working because you can put all your time and effort into it you can
have you know several releases all that kind of stuff, but you know if something
like this happens, it will crush you. That's why I like to have lots of lines
in the water, lots of eggs in the basket,
or whatever. Choose your own metaphor. So that's it for this week!
The app store is.... you have to abide by their rules and you know at any
moment they could pull something and that's what happened to me.
Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. So it happens and
I'll keep you updated if anything changes,
and that's it. I'll talk to you next week! Hey! I really hope you liked that video.
Now I do this once a week so if you want to hear more or you want to hear
more about our experiences with the App Store either Google Play or
iTunes,
please go ahead and subscribe to the channel and please like this video and
leave a comment. I love reading the comments. I love hearing what you have to
say, even if it's just Hello or whatever. And like I say before,
if you're not sure what to say in a comment like I never know what to say
in a comment. I'll make it easier for you. If you like it just go ahead and
say "Gnarly" which is an 80's term or if you didn't like it just say "Bogus" and
and if you didn't think any of it just say"Eh", right? So that
would be a big big big help. And another thing you could do, which I'd
really appreciate it. If you're on the app store and you want to try one of our
apps. Look up some of the Overpass apps, applications either on iTunes or Google
Play and leave a review and let us know what you think about it either good
or bad, but you know we're all trying to build up in the market
so that would be a big help. So that's it! I'll talk to you next week.