Getting Your Mobile App Accepted in the App Store

February 21, 2014 | By: Adrian

Weeks after Flappy Bird was pulled from the app stores, the addictive game still continues to make headlines. From wild Ebay bids to game “cheats” and app imitations, it seems nearly impossible to read industry news without running into a new Flappy Bird article. While discussing the rejection of copycat apps during TECKpert’s team meeting, we began discussing why they are being rejected and, more importantly, how one avoids getting their app rejected from an app store. We came up with a few of the most common reasons why apps are declined, but being the tech experts we are, we wanted to expand on it a little bit more.

If you’re about to submit your app to the store, this article is for you. Are you an app store veteran? We invite you to join the conversation @TECKpert and let us know about some other tips you think are useful.

How to get your mobile app accepted in app stores:

1. Make sure your app works on a range of devices. Thorough testing must be done ensure this.
2. Follow the different app stores’ design and function guidelines. All three stores offer documentation like Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, Window’s Store App Architecture and Google Play’s Core App Quality Guidelines.
3. Emphasize what your app can do, not what it can’t do.
4. Keep any third-party mechanisms out of your app, such as third-party payment and billing.
5. Do not mention the competitor stores i.e. putting references to Google Play when submitting to Apple.
6. Don’t violate any trademarks or intellectual property, as this will result in an automatic rejection from all three stores.
7. Don’t copy a device’s built-in app. Make sure you emphasize why it’s different or an improvement from the existing feature i.e. a more productive alarm or calendar.
8. If you’re collecting any of your users’ personal data, know that they must consent.
9. Make sure your content is appropriate. Each app store incorporates a maturity level rating for app content.
10. Don’t consume a large amount of bandwidth if the app is used over cellular networks. A good rule of thumb is to not consume more than 5 MB of data per 5 minutes of activity.

PS In case you were wondering, our Flappy Bird high score here at TECKpert is 39. Kudos, Adrian.