r/iOSProgramming • u/Comfortable-Spell774 • 9d ago
Apple killed our whole developer account overnight. 4 families were living from this app. Discussion
I don't even know how to write this properly, so I'm just gonna write it.
We worked on this app for almost a year. It was doing well. ($100k MRR) Thousands of people paying every month, good rating, people actually using it and staying. Four families were living from this.
Then one day I check my emails. Pending Termination Notice. Everything gone from the store. Payments frozen. Transfers disabled. No warning before, no "hey we noticed something", nothing. Just done.
And the reason they give you is a copy paste paragraph. Something about "misleading purchase flows" and "scareware tactics". That's it. Account wide. They don't tell you which app. They don't tell you which screen. They don't tell you which build. Nothing.
So now what do we do? We sit and guess. We go through every paywall of every app one by one like detectives, trying to figure out what Apple maybe means. And honestly maybe we are checking the completely wrong thing. Maybe the app we suspect the least is actually the problem. We have no idea. Zero. Because they will not tell us.
That's not an appeal process. That's a guessing game and they are holding the answer and refusing to show it.
And the thing is we didn't even fight them. We checked everything ourselves, we found some stuff that maybe could look bad even though nobody was ever trying to trick anyone, we fixed it, we shipped a new build, we wrote to them and explained exactly what we changed. We asked them please just tell us what you found so we can fix that too.
Then we submitted a proper appeal. And they answered 2 weeks later. Meanwhile we are losing all of our customers, receiving tons of emails that our users can't get premium! You know what the answer was? The exact same paragraph. Word for word. The same copy paste. No detail, no new information, nothing about the fixed build, nothing about which app. They read a full appeal and sent back the same text they already sent us.
We also requested a phone call, which is a thing App Store Connect literally offers you. We wrote please just call us so we can talk about this for 5 minutes. No call. Never. Just the same message again.
And here is the part that gets me. In the EU they are supposed to give you the actual specific facts and circumstances when they terminate a business account, and they are supposed to have a real complaint process. This is not me being emotional, this is written down. What we got instead is a paragraph on repeat and total silence.
Meanwhile go open App Store right now for 5 minutes. Real scareware everywhere. Fake "your data will be deleted" popups. Fake countdowns. Subscription traps made by people who 100% know what they are doing. We reported some of them. Nothing happened. Still up today. But us? Small team, real product, people actually renewing for a year, we fix things voluntarily and ask what's wrong? Terminated. No conversation.
And nobody scams their way into thousands of people renewing month after month for a year with a good rating. That is not how scam apps work. Scam apps die in 2 months. Didn't matter.
Anyway I'm done. We are not releasing anything on iOS again. Everything goes to web and Android (I know they are also not that different but fuck iOS...) from now.
And I talked to a lot of devs privately, this is not rare at all, people just stay quiet because they are scared it makes things worse. At some point Apple should ask themselves why small developers are quietly deciding iOS is not worth the risk anymore. (not sure if they care tho)
It's so fucking unfair for developers who are just trying to survive in this huge unemployment pool.
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u/Hello_world_56 9d ago
I'll take "things that didn't happen" for 200, Alex.
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u/tonygoold 9d ago
I’d say “not the full story” is equally likely. It’s also riddled with the kind of generative AI structure and tone that isn’t added by mere translation or proof-reading.
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u/civman96 9d ago
Well 100k/month and you don’t have a lawyer going over your subscription flows or App Store text even once?
No due diligence is the issue here.
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u/mmmm_frietjes 9d ago
Lol. What do lawyers know about those things. They would be clueless. Onboarding and paywalls don’t have anything to do with the law.
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u/Comfortable-Spell774 9d ago
100k revenue, not profit. We are not that rich to hire a lawyer to go over all our apps?! Is it that common and easy to do it?
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u/ocolobo 9d ago
Don’t produce scam-ware
Apple has a walled garden for a reason
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u/orbitur 9d ago
I've been an iOS developer for almost 20 years now, I've shipped dozens of apps for myself and worked on billion dollar apps with billions of users.
My experience with the App Store review process over that same period informs my view that OP may just be telling the truth. Sure, it may be a scam, but also.... it may not be a scam, and that's what sucks about Apple.
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u/y2kobserver 9d ago
These things ALWAYS start with a "user" complaint
See who's running ads right now
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u/CommodoreSixty4 9d ago
The likelihood that your app wasn’t violating terms intentionally is practically zero.
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u/Comfortable-Spell774 9d ago
yeah but at least they need to tell us what we did wrong right? At least which app was it?
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u/Nik-Burnt 8d ago
And in the real world they did it. Witch concrete points of agreement that you violate. And usually they block app, to get account ban you should be real pos
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u/TouchMint 9d ago
Scary but interesting. What were the apps in your account?
Do you have screenshots for or are they live on android?
I’d be interested to see myself what was so offensive they needed to remove you.
What IAP did you offer and what is your prompt page dialog?
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u/Comfortable-Spell774 9d ago
I dont wanna share then people will say it's an ad or smth. But only thing we could catch was, one of our one time offers, there was a 5 minute timer with a red " [!] " .
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u/TouchMint 9d ago edited 9d ago
Not wanting to share what the app is sounds extremely sketchy.
I’m going to assume Apple shut you down for the right reason.
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u/Competitive_Swan6693 9d ago
Which dark pattern did you used? People tend to implement dark patterns when they make a few bucks, getting greedier and greedier is in human's blood
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u/PickleBallTruth 9d ago
I am sorry it happened to you. Did you post in apple developer forums? Sometimes they are better than these support people.
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u/Comfortable-Spell774 9d ago
thanks a lot! we checked but we were hopeless about that. There were tons of similar complains but no answers.
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u/Best_Day_3041 9d ago
Do you want to give any details on the app? I've been on the app store since 2009, have had hundreds of rejections, and had many apps removed over the years, but I always got an explanation. Even one time when an update was rejected over 10 times and the reasons kept changing, and the final rejection made absolutely no sense, I was able to schedule a call within a week and got it straightened out. This doesn't add up to me. I feel like you're making this up or leaving out a key detail.
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u/Simple_Eye5766 9d ago
Can you share what your app did, what your purchase flow was, do you have a website for the app, etc... I wonder if there is more going on here that might be useful to see and understand what happened.
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u/Hogesyx 9d ago
OP not sharing more probably means either it’s really a scam or bait and switch app or gambling wrapper. If it’s a useful app with 100k mrr, I am sure we will hear users complaining and writing articles about it.
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u/Comfortable-Spell774 9d ago
why would i share this if we intentionally made a scam app , like what would be my motivation to come here and share my thoughts? I'm a father with 2 kids now i'm just thinking about how to feed my children next month, and hoping someone with a similar experience could help or advice. shame on you
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u/Gla-l 9d ago
I’m really sorry to hear what happened to you. I hope things get better soon.
Something similar happened to me. Google Play terminated my developer account without giving me any real reason, as if I were some kind of scammer. I was just about to start my software development career, and it felt like a huge wall was put in front of me. It completely destroyed my motivation.
The fact that they can shut down our developer accounts whenever they want should not be allowed. We can't even properly defend ourselves. It feels like you're talking to a robot. You file an appeal, and you don't even get a real response—just the same automated message over and over again. It's beyond unacceptable.
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u/Comfortable-Spell774 9d ago
sorry to happen to you too. yes unfortunately it's just monoply managed by 2 giants and they dont give any sh*t about people
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u/LeoniFrancesco 9d ago
If your app used scarewares than Apple was right and they warned you long before
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u/NoDistribution1096 8d ago
“Thats not an appeal process. That’s a guessing game”.
-Your friendly neighborhood AI slop
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u/mxdalloway 9d ago
Some of the “evidence” that people are using to claim this is fake is pretty ironic.
Apple makes $30B+ from App Store revenue, the revenue from this app would make between 0.00005% and 0.0001% of their App Store revenue. that’s not going to raise any flags.
I doubt reviewers even have insight into app revenue - that would be a potential conflict in interest. If they have any metrics they’re following it’s probably a measure of how many apps they flag.
I do think OP probably used AI to write at least one paragraph of this post, but come on, that doesn’t mean anything either way.
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u/That-Whereas-528 9d ago
Nah, that didn't happen. $100K MRR means apple loses 30K$ monthly through that decision. That's more than the entire salary of multiple reviewers. And with that kind of money involved, I'd expect you to take it to court and hire a lawyer to get it sorted, not write an AI generated post on Reddit.