Apple's New Year's resolution? Get apps through approval faster

One of the biggest gripes we heard from iPhone developers during 2009 was that it took forever for their apps to make it through the iTunes App Store approval process. Often apps would be disapproved for seemingly illogical reasons after a long wait in the approval queue, and TUAW heard from more than one developer that had just given up.

iTunes Connect, the portal through which iPhone developers submit apps and check sales, was down between December 23 - 28, 2009. Since that time, TUAW has received a number of positive emails from iPhone devs that indicate that Apple has resolved to quit holding up apps in 2010.

How fast are some apps making it through the process? Take developer Aaron Douglas's free Migraine Diary [iTunes Link]; he submitted it on December 28th at 9 PM CT and received notice of the approval a 4 PM CT on the 31st of December -- that's less than three days.

But that's downright slow compared to what Yuri, a developer at Atomic Cactus, experienced:

I'm a developer behind Atomic Cactus, we have 3 games currently in the app store, and they all took approximately 2-3 weeks to get approved. Today at 4:00 am I submitted for approval our latest app, which isn't exactly a "fart app" (it's a pretty polished puzzle game with OpenFeint). As of 1:30 pm today, the app is in the app store.

That's nine and a half hours, folks! This is a small sampling of the many emails we've received from developers since just after Christmas.

Whether this is due to a New Year's resolution, competition from the Android platform, or a new back-end system for processing apps, it's a welcome change for iPhone developers and users alike.

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One of the biggest gripes we heard from iPhone developers during 2009 was that it took forever for their apps to make it through the iTunes...

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Rick

I sent my app for approval 9 days ago - I can't confirm this at all!

January 15 2010 at 1:54 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

DA360

I'm very glad Apple is working to improve on this. I hope step two on the App Store improving grounds will be more lienant rules because another big complaint is Apple rejecting apps for well, rather small and obscure reasons.

I am sure their doing this because they know now with the pressure of competition, if they don't improve conditions for developers, they could lose them and eventually, their status as the number one smartphone in sales.

January 10 2010 at 6:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

info

I can confirm Ken Bergers statement. The lite version of my app was also approved within 24 hours.
http://www.sevenlakessoftware.com/VisualShopper
Norbert

January 10 2010 at 5:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Nathan Wood

Bjango had an 0.X update approved in 24 hours for Consume yesterday.

January 10 2010 at 11:57 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

josef

Our new game "Druid Quest" ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/druid-quest/id349092963?mt=8 ) went through the review process also in 3 days.

But what's more interesting: We had in the 1.0 release a little bug that would not allow music playback on some devices. This was quickly fixed and we uploaded the update to 1.1 on 7th January to iTunes Connect. Next Morning the update was approved and available in the store. It took them only few hours to review the update. (And we did NOT use the urgent update feature!)

This new approval speed is just amazing. Keep up with it Apple!

January 10 2010 at 10:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeremy Seitz

We just saw our free app iParked approved in 6 hours. No joke. We were shocked. The last approval took nearly three weeks (back in December).

January 10 2010 at 6:27 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

nasavinirs

I submitted my app (India Samachar) on Jan 6th night and it was approved for sale on Jan 7th. The fastest I have seen so far.

January 09 2010 at 11:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Cananito

Finally Apple, finally!!

January 09 2010 at 7:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ken Berger

We submitted our first app just after Christmas and it was approved in 24 hours!
http://www.prscables.com/prsjamamp/
Not a simple app
Ken

January 09 2010 at 5:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Ken Berger's comment

tuaw

This is great news, simply because things seemed to be getting worse as the year went on. Our last update just before Christmas did get approved within less than a week, so I am glad to see that it wasn't just a rushed response to flush the approval queue before the holiday break.

And as a the proud owner of two Paul Reed Smith guitars, I'll have to check out your app. :)

January 09 2010 at 5:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Stephane

I can confirm that the approval process seems way way faster. My latest application TapPerso (now in the store http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tapperso/id348856989?mt=8) went from "Waiting for Review" to "In Review" in a matter of couple hours.
The app was rejected a couple times because of some trademark issue with some images but overall the approval process was EXTREMELY fast compare to 2009.
In the past my apps usually used to stay 4 to 5 days before moving to "In Review"...

January 09 2010 at 4:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply