The rejection of the Damien app can be regarded as a storybook Apple rejection episode. The Application (posted on Nov 4) seemed to be stuck in the rejection process until we received a message (Nov 19) from Apple with the request to get in touch with an Apple staff member named Richard Chipman.
We realized this was bad news and I was prepared for the worst when I gave Richard Chipman from Apple a call. Mr. Chipman gave the Apple verdict: REJECTED.
Damien was rejected for following reasons:
- Thy shall not ask money for charity applications (BTW this also rules out in app payments!)
- Thy art only allowed to put a link to external websites to handle donations.
This practically meant that we could trash our iDonAid plans.
The Damien application was rejected based on undisclosed Apple policies that only can be communicated over the phone and never in writing…
Basically if you are a commercial company, you are allowed to make money out of an Application on the App store, when you are charity or a non-profit organization you can not. You will not find anything about this guideline on the Apple website or in the SDK developer agreements. The arguments and communication techniques used by Apple are - to say the least - quite unusual.
Phone conversation with Apple
I tried to make my case over the phone with the Apple representative. Here is a written impression of part of the conversation I've had with Richard Chipman.
KVB: You say that there are guidelines. But there are no guidelines… where can we find the guidelines? Because if I have to alter this application I want to make sure that I am not going to loose any money on it and that Apple will reject it again. If there are rules I would like to know those rules. You understand me?
RC: I am explaining this to you now.
KVB: OK…You are explaining to me now - over the phone - that there are different rules for NGO's than for commercial companies.
RC: Errh… charities yes. There's different rules for charities…
KVB: Where can I find that on the Apple website? Where can I find the information about that?
RC: You wouldn't find that on the Apple website, that's why I am communicating it to you over the phone.
KVB: First of all I will have to discuss this matter with our development team to come up with a strategy. Is there any other channel at Apple where we can try and come to an agreement about this?
RC: This policy for charities comes from very high levels of management here in Apple. It is my task to communicate this policy to you. As far as having dialogue to change this policy… I don't think that this policy is going to be something that we are going to change anytime in the foreseeable future.
Hands up I've had this conversation many times and it's a policy that we are very steady on. If you which to speak to somebody else I can refer you to someone else of course. There is opportunity on the app store for you it is just that there are very specific guidelines for your category of Apps and we need to make sure you comply with those.
KVB: Yeah, but they are unknown that's my major concern. You say there are guidelines that Apple uses internally but if you don't say what those guidelines are we cannot comply to them and that's the problem. I can start developing all over again but then maybe some other mystery clause comes up again…
I started repeating myself and it was clear that our conversation was going nowhere. Mr Chipman clearly was the messenger and he handled the case in a very polite and helpful manner.
Bottom line:
Charity apps are not allowed to make use of and benefit from the iTunes payment infrastructure.
P.S. This is not a stand alone case. The appleblog.com describes a very similar rejection scenario for Mokugift's "A real Tree" App.
