Apple support and review staff Incompetence

Note: Apparently, some developers are having problem on getting their games approved to be included to the iTunes store. Here's a letter from one of them.

To know more about Zombie Mangle visit TouchArcade Forum.

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Hi,

I'm Perry Hart, the sole developer at PHARTGAMES.

It's apparent that Apple's systems for reviewing iPhone applications and supporting developers is inadequate and down right amateur.

There has been quite a large amount of hype about my new app ZombieMangle, a first person shooter. Alot of people want to play it after seeing the videos on youtube and especially after the massive disappointment of Zombie Mansion and Cube.

I submitted Zombie Mangle over a week ago now, Which was what i though would be a perfect time to release just before christmas. However, A few days after submission apple sends me an email stating that they require  "Unexpected Additional Time For Review" with no reason whatsoever for the delay. So I do a search for any other developers who have received this email, and it appears there's ALOT of them. 

What this email basically means is that your application has joined a queue which never gets looked at and your app wont be approved, or rejected depending on apples discression for months. One developer has been on the queue for three months, and received absolutely no information about what was wrong.

The email address to get help about app reviews, as stated by apple is devprograms@apple.com. Developers can send all the emails they like to this address, they just get ignored.

Developers can call phone support however the people on the other end of the line can barely speak english, and are unable to help with anything. They say they cannot contact the review staff to one developer, to others they say they have sent an email asking for information, others they say they will call back (with no call back). Some developers are told that their application has received an "Escalated Priority" all of which seems like absolute rubbish as they still get no result after months of waiting.

One fellow developer has called numerous times trying to get a name changed on their tax information. They get told the issue has been Escalated however are still waiting months afterward for a simple name change. Apple are even in violation of their contract as they haven't been paid for some regions, even after the 45 days past the end of the month as stated in the iphone developer contract. But this is a seperate issue.

So, with no indication from apple what the issue is with ZombieMangle I figure i'll be proactive and change the game to remove the blood as it may be too extreme, change the effects to green instead of red, change the  zombies into aliens, change all the interface graphics containing red blood to green etc. I even changed the sheep to robot sheep incase they had some issue with aliens attacking sheep. Then I resubmitted under a different name Alien Mangle. In my submission I stated clearly in CAPS "IF THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THIS APP, DO NOT SEND ME AN UNEXPECTED ADDITIONAL TIME EMAIL, REJECT IT AND TELL ME WHAT THE PROBLEM IS"

Today I received the same canned email stating the requirement of additional time.

Calling out for help on the official forums has yielded nothing more than moderators canned replies stating email addresses and phone numbers.

I think it's time that all developers and potential developers know that they are working with amateurs.

Thanks,

Perry Hart.

PHARTGAMES.

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