A Well-Timed Letter of Rejection
- August 27th, 2009
- 149 Comments
We’re no strangers to silly app rejection emails from Apple, but this one seems to take the cake (at least in our opinion). Convertbot 1.4 was rejected because our icon for Time is too similar to one of Apple’s default resource icons for History/Recent. They say users might get confused that our Time category might mean History or Recent. Now I might be able to understand if this happened when we first submitted Convertbot, but there have been multiple releases already so why is this a show-stopper now? It does worry me that our product has to be held back for another 1-2 weeks for something so trivial.
So what’s the plan? I need to redo the icon, I suppose. But Convertbot icons were meant to use as little lines/shapes as possible to identify the category. I feel that our current icon represents time as simply as possible. So how can we make Time different? What if it’s set at 9 o’clock instead of 3? Is that acceptable? The big problem here is the only way I can get that answer is by making the change, resubmitting the app, and waiting another week or 2 for Apple’s verdict.
Update, a day later…
We understand that the icon is very similar to their resource for History. However, icons are not logos and Apple understands this. This has nothing to do with intellectual property as some of you have mentioned. This has everything to do with an icon Apple has designated to mean one thing and us using it for another.
If we used it in the same context as how Apple uses it, there probably wouldn’t have been a post about it. I just don’t see how anyone could mistake a clock icon as history/recent in the context of how we are using it. This is a conversion app and the icon is surrounded by other icons used to describe a conversion category. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, but I think context is key here. Besides, it’s not like we used their exact resource or even copied it intentionally. This happens to be the simplest way to draw a clock.
Don’t forget these decisions aren’t made by the designers at Apple who wrote these guidelines. The app reviewers are probably just following protocol and don’t have the design experience to make a proper judgement call on something like this. I’m also not saying Apple’s designers would have let this through. Who knows what they think about this. It’s just something to keep in mind. Some of you are giving the reviewers more credit than they deserve.
Also, this post has nothing to do with fighting Apple on this. I made a quick change to the icon and we resubmitted already. If they reject it again, we’ll change it again and submit again. The wait time is the primary reason for the rant. For little things like this, they should just approve the app and send us a note that we must fix it before our app will be approved again.
Any developer for the iPhone/Touch knows that Apple is a black box when it comes to this. Their rejection emails tend to be very vague and cold. No screenshots with clear explanations. It took us 10 minutes just to decipher the email and figure out what we did wrong in the first place. We’ve replied to these emails in the past with more questions and it took days to get another vague answer that basically said the same thing as the first email. There’s no phone number that says, “Call me if you have anymore questions or concerns about this”.
So why did we post this? Because developers need to be heard. Whether you agree with Apple or not, is not the point. The point is, the whole app approval system is a painful process and we felt the need to rant about it this time. Thanks for listening.
Wow… that’s lame. I guess after the google incident they feel more pressured to reject people for trivial reasons.
An hourglass, maybe?
Apple thinks their customers have an IQ of a crocodile
That really is ridiculous. Apple needs to start getting consistent within their app store.
I fully support changing the time on the icon and leaving the design as close to how it already looks – Even if it yields another weak rejection.
It’s a shame too, I was REALLY looking forward to this update.
If you set the time to something different it should be fine.
Oh wow, jaelk has a brilliant idea.
Doing a simple hourglass would be awesome. And it sounds infinity less risky!
That is a tricky situation. Having to wait that long to only have it rejected again could prove a right pain.
jaelk’s suggestion of an hour glass is quite good though.
What about a very simplified wrist watch?
Nice Apple. Because whenever I’ve used Convertbot, I’ve always found myself wondering if tapping on that icon would open my recent calls list. Phew, glad they’re making sure that gets cleared up.
Hope someone with a little more smarts gets back to you guys with a note the update will go live.
II like jaelk’s idea. An hourglass could really be simple, elegant and well-understood all at the same time.
Th
I think Daniel Jalkut’s previous blog post sums it pretty well:
“Many of the mercenary testers I encountered were motivated to scrape the system for bugs, as ridiculous as they may be. They logged them into the bug system and then defended them at all costs, as if their lives depended on it. And it turned out, they did. At least, their paychecks did.”
http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/872/app-store-mercenaries
@jaelk
Thanks for the hourglass idea. It could work. :)
Wow, Mark, that’s really lame. Especially when the “conversion” category is getting really competitive, this puts you at a disadvantage to have another delay.
There should be some sort of “fasttrack” solution – so that if you change the icon to something new, you submit it, they look to see that the icon is new and not too similar, post the update.
It always disturbs me when I hear another quality iPhone developer posting a “denied” story… especially for something so trivial.
My suppestion: try setting it at 10 and 2 o’clock instead… that seems to be a more widely accepted display of clock hands anyhow (based on watch ads, etc).
Wait, you guys didn’t know? Apple owns the rights to 3pm. And 3am. If you’re doing anything but patiently waiting for 3:01 during that 60 seconds twice a day, they’ll send their lawyers after you.
Hey, that’s the “international” icon for time/clock/watch. One day it’s impossible to design any icon anymore.
Sorry Apple, but that is very uncool.
You should also change the icon for “Work”. Everytime I use it to try to change the settings.
@Dave
It “could” be a fast turnaround time. There’s just not consistency so it’s anybody’s guess. Convertbot had a small bug when it was first released that produced incorrect conversions in some euro-localized devices. We corrected the problem within the hour and submitted. It took Apple a week to push our update and our app was filled with 1 star reviews in those countries.
I think your website is broken. I’m viewing this page on my iPhone and have been clicking on your image for the past hour, but my browser history is not showing up.
The sad part is having to make the changes to only wait all over again on the review process. Might be better to come up with a new icon and not get rejected again for the same stupid reason. COME APPLE GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!!!!
This is quite silly, especially when it’s affecting companies like Tapbots who are quite obviously on the forefront of iPhone app innovation and design quality.
That’s absurd. I think comment number 3 by Keehun Nam pretty much sums it up. Apple are acting like iPhone owners really don’t have any idea what they’re doing. Yet, they managed to go out, but the phone, sign up for an iTunes Store account, and buy the app, so clearly, they do have some kind of brain.
Seems like changing the time on the clock would be the quickest way to keep the intent of what you are doing, but making it different from their thing. I’d avoid the hourglass – too – Windows.
Change it to 12:00 so it looks like a middle finger.
That seems so stupid that it makes me want to submit 350 apps with a big wallpaper and icon clock, and nothing else.
(Well actually, that would be pretty stupid too)
I guess the most logical would be to change the time on the clock, but keep a clock.
BTW, don’t use 9 o’clock, since it’s used in the iPhone “Alarm” app.
The hourglass is a good idea — or change to 10:10, the hour used in promotional shots of watches and clocks.
I advise Apple to rethink the way they use the clock symbol. For History? That’s ok I guess. But Recents? Not easy to make a connection there. Shouldn’t be used for Recents then.
Ho shit, I have an icon that looks like this in my 321Run app. That’s probably why they are holding my 1.2 update so long, it’s been 13 days now.
Frankly, this is disgusting. As an iPhone developer, I feel like I’m being treated like a three years old child. You have to exceptionally succesful on the AppStore to be able to cope with that silliness.
And the time it takes to update? I had a bugfix release before that one: it took 9 days for no new feature. Meanwhile, I was receiving comments from users complaining it wasn’t working, and all I could say was: Yes, I know, waiting for someone to fix the Store.
I’m clicking “recents icon” on the top of this page and it doesn’t work! Fix it.
I got nailed for exactly the same thing a few months ago– http://www.flickr.com/photos/atomicbird/3470998937/
I considered fixing it like this but decided against it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atomicbird/3471007727/
You have to go with the little hands at 10 after 10. It’s the iconic time that most watches in advertisements are set to.
Oops, Sean Sperte got the jump on me.
I also vote “hourglass.”
This is starting to get too far.. I vote “riot”…
This isn’t good for you, it isn’t good for customers, and ultimately it isn’t good for Apple either. I thought that Phil’s recent interventions was a sign that they’d realized that this kind of rejection was too common and of no significant benefit. Maybe they’re just having trouble communicating that to the review staff? (It’s a long time until the next WWDC too…)
Shouldn’t that resemblance actually be a benefit? Isn’t apple striving for uniformity in its UI so that when people see the cog they think, “settings” or the clock, “time” whether it’s history, recent calls, or an alarm clock (all of which apple seems fine mixing and matching the icon with in their own apps)?
There’s an email address at https://developer.apple.com/iphone/news/ that might be helpful.
I second Sperte’s input.
An hourglass could be great, but if not, then 10:10.
One of the best interfaces I’ve seen in the App Store and they reject it for some silly little icon. Lame Apple, very lame.
hahahha, sometimes I really think Apple thinks their customers have 2-3 years old. I’m into an unit converter app, how can I get confused?? Come on!!
This is just total bull. Apple can’t seriously be rejecting your app for using a CLOCK to represent TIME.
Can you publish the wording of the rejection?
I suppose an hourglass icon would indicate the conversion is related to the measurement of time (rather conversions like timezones), so it could be a suitable icon. Although, to represent a time category by using a clock icon seems entirely valid to me. Apple is wrong to block your app for this.
This is probably a stupid question, but can you not e-mail Apple and ask if inverting the “Time” icon is acceptable or not? If you can’t, I guess you might want to try something totally unlike the current icon, if you don’t want to wait two more weeks, that is.
In my opinion, I think your “Time” icon looks very different from Apple’s “recents” icon. Yours is much thicker and is displayed on a click-wheel instead of a bottom-row square. I find it highly unlikely that people would confuse the “Recents” icon with your “Time” one.
I guess this just highlights the need for a reform in the way Apple approves apps from the App Store.
I hope Convertbot 1.4 comes out without any more delay from Apple. I love Convertbot. It comes in handy for me when I’m writing to my pen-pals who use different units then I do.
Keep up the good work guys and hope the best for you.
Make it 10:10 like most watchmakers do in their ads
This might not be driven so much by confusion as it is protecting their design property. Your icon looks to be only 4 pixels or so different.
Just to be safe, go with the Dali melting clock.
Stick em with a good ol’ SBBOD
@RT Salvo
I highly doubt that’s the case at all. Their clock icon is a resource that any developer can use in their app. They just have specific requirements as to when it can be used.
“Simple” is not an adverb.
@Joel
Thanks, teacher. Can I get a gold star now? :)
Use the same time as the Time Machine’s menu bar icon. :P
I don’t understand why people get excited about things like this.
Well, actually, I do. But people with any experience in software engineering should really know better.
Familiarity is a key property of an excellent user interface. This software used the “Recent Items” icon for a purpose other than “Recent Items”. Therefore, it’s a legitimate bug and the authors of this software should be glad that someone finally caught it; their software is better for it.
That this bug wasn’t caught in previous reviews means nothing. Once a bug is found, there is no good reason for Apple or anyone else to let it fall through the cracks.
Fix your bugs, re-submit your app, end of story. What’s controversial about that?
Isn’t the hourglass more a metaphor for “waiting” (at least in the windows world)? Maybe setting the time on the current icon to the time you’ve received the reject mail from Apple :-)
I don’t think an hourglass works – for me, that indicating waiting for something. And how many people determine what time it is by looking at an hourglass?
Another suggestion, what about
10:10
that looks like a time.
fwiw, most watch advertisements set their time to 10:08, because it looks like a check mark.
not that this offers any empathy for a ridiculous and obnoxious rejection, but it may be of some help. you need hugs and beer. i can offer both the next time you’re in chicago.
I actually see where Apple’s coming from. If they didn’t notice this in the past doesn’t mean it’s too late to fix things now. Cognitively speaking, it can be subconsciously conflicting for users.
You can use the classic 10:10 I guess. You’ll see it on most, if not all, photographs of timepieces.
You have a great app on your hands. I use it often. It just seems the app reviewers missed this little “issue”.
Set it at 5 minutes to midnight.
Maybe a wristwatch? OH WAIT, it’s been done in Mac OS 9. An hourglass? OH WAIT, it’s been done on WIndows. I’ve got the perfect idea- make the clock square!
This makes no sense. Twitterific uses that exact icon to represent recent tweets. C’mon Apple, consumers are not that stupid.
There are a surprising number of clocky app icons with their times set to 4:20 (looking at you Nightstand and Pennies).
Something to consider is that wrist watches actually have different units of time that they measure but an hour glass doesn’t have any units at all.
I like the wrist watch idea. It might look close in style to the thermometer but certainly be unique enough to be differentiated from the thermometer as a wrist watch. In thinking about the current thermometer icon as a basis, I might be tempted to move the round mercury reservoir part up to the middle to act as the face of the watch and then enlarge this face a bit so it can hold the 2 clock hands (instead of the 1 mercury line).
One designer’s perspective.
Love the app.
I think the the App Store Reviewers should be forced to sign each approval/rejection with their actual name and ID. That way, we can see who is rejecting apps for silly reasons.
Just copy Apple, then. Open up their Clock app and search. The chronograph looks simple and obvious enough to me.
@Jason Pennies’ clock is for History, which is not that unsimilar to “recent items”, so it does comply with Apple’s use of the clock IMHO. I could not find any clock icon in NightStand.
@Jason Ouch. Now I see you were talking about time expressed in digits instead of clock hands.
While I don’t like the app approval process, I think this is a legitimate claim. I am actually surprised that Apple is raking through the app in that fine a level of detail.
That particular icon is a standard element within the iPhone OS for “Recents” — it even goes by that name in Interface Builder when selecting among the various UITabBarItem identifier types (aka UITabBarSystemItemRecents). Ironically, the same exact icon is used for “History” (UITabBarSystemItemHistory), so Apple is already diluting it a bit.
But anyway, I think it’s legit to flag this. It sure wouldn’t be cool if people started using the OS X “wristwatch” icon to mean “clock” in OS X apps, since it’s well associated to be an indication of activity/delay. This is really no different. Again, I am surprised Apple is getting into this much detail in their review, but it at least indicates an attempt to enforce their own interface design standard, something that is sorely lacking in third party apps right now.
To the existing list of suggestions, I might add the idea for an LED alarm clock (or stopwatch) style readout, maybe a generic 12:00 (or 2:00.00) in LED font, inside a rectangle. Even fits in with the numerical theme of the app.
I know it’s cool to bitch about app rejections right now, but I think developers should just buckle down, fix the problem, and resubmit. We all have to deal with it from time to time. If I handled corporate rejection this way during my day job, I’d be blogging every 10 minutes and would run out of time to do any work….
How about changing the clock to a stopwatch? My guess is it would be fairly simple to add a crown & ditch the hour hand.
I am assuming the feature is to convert time? How about the icon like status bar’s time machine? Or GMT?
Though a stopwatch is an even better idea than horuglass, I like the idea of a classic digital clock with distinct segments. I know it goes against the minimalist goals. Let’s see. One rectangle, a vertical tapered one (two segments), colon, another vertical one tapered (2), and a 4 for variety (four segments). Eight lines, two dots, and a rect. Workable?
I don’t know about the clock icon, but I think they were right to reject the app.
It’s a very cool app, but buggy: when I click on this clock icon, my Recent Phone calls list doesn’t show up…
I hope this get fixed in a future release.
Thank you App Store team for making sure this app works as expected. I was so confused.
Let’s hope they don’t add a thermal captor in the next iPhone generation, or you will have to find a n other icon to replace the thermometer for the temperature conversion category
Thank You Apple. Thank you for reminding me that you think we are all idiots.
Go with the stopwatch. Or just resubmit the app and hope you get a less anal reviewer.
wow we feel your pain Mark. How’s this for comparing war stories?
Entertainment app rejected because it featured a 2mm image of an iPhone ( we had it lying on a table in one of the screens – where one of the ‘cartoon’ characters left it ). But wait that’s not the ridiculous part….time in review to ultimately het that email 16 WEEKS!!
If their concern is really that users will be confused that a clock set to 3 represents “Recent/History”, instead set it to 9, which is what Apple use in their Clock app for “Alarm” and evidently appropriately represents the measure of time. Also, I disagree an hourglass would be a suitable replacement, though I can imagine it would make a gorgeous icon.
Good luck getting this sorted.
- A very satisfied Tapbot collector
I’ve seen it already mentioned here before, and I agree: The fact that the icon is in a separate program altogether from the iPhone’s Phone App’s internal icon for “Recents” is a big double-take when given this reason for rejection.
Here’s something that’ll bake your noodle up real good: Twitterrific 2.0′s “Timeline/Recent Tweets” icon is the same as the Phone App’s
NOBODY has any right to use that symbol. I have exclusively patented all things that resemble a circle with an L shape in the upper right quadrant.
I am in the process of suing Rolex, Seiko, Tag Heuer and the City of London (owners of Big Ben). I’ll add TapBots and Apple to my writ.
It’s pathetic how you people think you can lay claim to anything.
Sincereley,
%$#@!
A sand clock!
Go read Joe Hewitts latest blog on why apple should get rid of the approval process all together.
-Sent from my Applezar
Setting to 9:00 hours won’t look good IMO. Maybe 4:00? Or even 1:30?
Rejecting an app for such a small concern is really silly. Myself, I would go with the wrist watch icon. There was one in the old Mac OS, it was the wait cursor or something. It’s pretty close to the current icon.
In defense of Apple, we all should be thankful that there is a company out there that sweats the details. Taken at a face value this looks like an absurd gripe from Apple, but if you think about it hard enough, it’s things like these that put iPhone OS and MacOS years ahead of the competition.
I do agree, however, that the process of App rejection isn’t the most efficient one. They could have fixed this by emailing you and fast-tracking the app without the wait.
Some people in the comments are misinterpreting user-interface consistency with trademarks and copyright. This is incorrect. Please read what the initial post says.
I have purchased Convertbot and the level of detail is amazing. I would hope that you, out of all the people, would understand that “good enough” often leads to mediocre products.
I concede with everyone that the rejection is pure bull, but on the subject of alternative icons; perhaps make it a stopwatch?
It’s meant for measuring time in any case so..
For a company famed for careful design, planning, etc., Apple sure seems to be shooting from the hip when it comes to app rejections.
Oh, wait… I forgot: they’re also famous for being control freaks. That explains it.
(A stopwatch would be better than an hourglass; or some kind of watch/clock with an elapsed-time wedge on it.)
Honestly I think you should change the icon, not for apple’s reason, but because when I think of a clock I think of a specific time of day or date. This is why it makes sense for Apples recents icon, because it tells you precisely when you made/received any given call.
This also is why a clock doesn’t fit (in my mind) with your app. and I was honestly confused the very first time I used the app. When I saw the Icon I thought it would be to convert 12hour time to 24hour “military” time.
Now when I think of a stopwatch (or hourglass for that matter), I think of a measurement of a certain amount of time. That, after all, is what is being converted inside your app. And I believe that either of these would fit well with your app.
-R
p.s. beautiful app!
I had a similar problem in the Netlog app.. Used a camera icon to indicate the “Photos” tab. “No way”, said Apple, “that would be confusing”, even though it had been that camera icon in 1.0 for months. Now in 1.1, it’s a picture frame with stylistic mountains :-(
This is sad. I just can’t understand Apple’s policy anymore. Dear Apple, please stop this nonsense.
There’s a very obvious reason why this has happened: Apple has had ever increasing problems with app developers using icons that were copied (inspired) from Apple’s own work. As a result they have implemented a more draconian policy across the board. The new policy is being applied on all new submissions.
I would think that simply changing he ‘time’ on the clockface is not the brightest idea for getting approval. Reversing the image (black for white) might be a smarter move.
“Measures” also use an hourglass. I have to say that I always found the icon a little less than intuitive, at least their version.
I didn’t read the whole thread but you could use 2 o’clock for icon or what ever different time (e.g. Convert uses 4 o’clock ).
You should just resubmit it as is. You have a 50/50 chance it’ll get accepted. :-)
Same problem here, some weeks ago. For my application “AB Search” I used an icon for several releases that intentionally reminded of the Address Book icon in OS X. Apple wrote:
” We’ve reviewed AB Search and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because of an Apple trademark image. Please see the attached image for an example of an Apple Trademarked image.”
I had to change the icon.
Add a little knob to the right of the clock. That makes it look a bit more time-ish, at least for me. Moving the hands to “ten-to-two” would porbably also help.
http://img.skitch.com/20090828-p9ajcjasciahurmqxd38e8rc4k.png
Clock? nope.
Hour Glass? nope.
Its gotta be a Sun Dial :-)
First of all, I
PD: Sorry ’bout the formatting mishap. Still, that doesn’t change my opinion on the subject.
PD2: Have you considered a Flux Capacitor as icon? The ultimate time converter (from present to past to different present to different future, etc) ;).
Just rotate the icon 40 degrees to the left, so it will show 0:50. This still should be recognizable.
Go with 10 and 2. As an indie app developer and also former jeweller, the 10 and 2 positions were commonly used by watch companies to be able to show off the company logo (usually midway between the centre of the face and the 12) and not interfere with any small date windows (at the 3 and 9 positions). Seiko, Rolex, and Bulova all used his standard.
Still a stupid rejection though, but matches some of my own (trivial stuff that got through five or six revisions then needed fixing now). And people wonder why my seventh game isn’t getting done quickly?
Too bad there is not a simple icon for two trains passing each other, while a passenger takes a flash picture from one train, the flash of which is observed from a person standing near the tracks and a passenger on the other train… Well, time is a fickle bit*h, isn’t it? Anyway, if the hourglass/Windows thing is an issue, how about a sundial?
Just when I thought apple couldn’t get more ridiculous with their rejections. You are a joke, Apple. A joke, I tell you!
I agree to those who have said 10 and 2, seeing as that’s the universal watch advertising time (and where you should be holding your steering wheel)
Otherwise, I think an hourglass could be cool.
Change the icon to “12:00″ is in two digits “12″, a colon “:” followed by two more digits “00″. Clearly indicates a time, but is not a real icon (plus it may not fit horizontally”.
Personally, an hour glass does not immediately convey ‘time’ to me.
-ch
I will try to be nice. I stumbled on to this site. Some of the comments of some of U people is just silly. If you have intellectual property including Icons, you have to consistently protect them or people can use your lack of doing so against U later in court. Let’s say next you decided to use their main logo. Trademarks require such action especially when they can’t deny having seen it.
Oh yeah, Just fix it and SHUT UP! Or don’t fix it but still SHUT UP!!!!
You do have a very nice looking blog if that’s any consolation. lol.
@Genovelle
Is typing the extra two letters around “U” really that hard?
Only Apple is allowed to have an elegant interface. If you want approval in the App Store, make it more amateurish. (Oh, and throw in some farting, beer-swilling bikini babes with machine guns.)
For the icon: a cesium atom. Everybody associates that with time, right?
I would avoid time all together.
Well if you have a robot that even mentions, displays or somehow via some kind of fuzzy logic conceives the meaning of time, it them becomes a machine that can deal with time or maybe a TimeMachine and that conflicts with apple’s products :-)
Interesting comments all ’round. Yes, there’s quite a bit of bitching at Apple, some of which is surely frustration-driven, some of which is deserved, and all of which makes for interesting reading.
I think the most interesting question is, Can Apple find things that it missed before… fairly? This icon has been in use for several versions, and yet those app reviewers didn’t catch it. So, why now? And is that “OK”?
In my world–the world of jet engines and airplanes–a bug, whether or not its as seemingly-benign as a UI confusion or as serious as a control loop problem, must be fixed, even if it got missed the first few times around. So we look at misses the first few times around as the errors, not the final catching of the problem. And we tend to take the misses more seriously than the actual error itself. The error is most likely a one-time problem. The misses of that error are more likely systemic, and that’s why we worry more.
Here, since lives aren’t at stake, I don’t see that it’s a big deal. If intellectual property is at stake, then it’s certainly Apple’s responsibility to defend its property. But in any case, I think Apple should be allowed the right to fix their own mistakes, too, just like we are expected to do as we develop our products.
On another note, yes, the clock icon means “time,” hence one might think that you’d be converting “time”-related units. But I have to agree with others who have correctly, in my opinion, pointed out that you don’t usually use a clock to measure time, that it’s only used as a point of reference. (Well, not quite. “How long is it until bedtime?” is a frequent question around my house. But I think the point’s made.) On the other hand (hah), if you’re going to measure time, a stopwatch is a great tool which will represent well as an icon. I’d guess that most people will recognize the round dial with a sweep hand and three bumps on top as such, too.
Think of it not as a “rejection from Apple,” but as an “opportunity to further refine an already great product.”
And, by the way, congratulation on your successes. They are well deserved.
Note to Apple reviewer responsible for the rejection: Couch your rejection in those terms and it might soften the blow just a bit.
/Bill
We also had an UPDATE to our iPhone app rejected because of something which hadn’t changed from the first version either. Our app is basically a remote control for a Mac app so it’s only useful over a local network. Apple rejected our 1.1 update because it didn’t check for and warn the user if there was not a local (wireless) network connection active. The worst part was, the update was a fix for an OS 3.0 compatibility problem which rendered the app useless. It was rejected the day before OS 3.0 came out and the delay in getting a second submission approved meant that a lot of our customers went for about a week without being able to use the app at all.
yes: just change it to 10:10
(and bring this whole stupid affair to every prominent media attention)
The app store review process is like airport security. Completely random.
A sundial might be an icon idea as well.
I’d vote: 10:10, Stopwatch, and Sundial in that order.
That’s pretty lame. I love Apple but sometimes it just seems like they have their head up their own a*#
Wait so your telling me Convert Bot can’t access your recent calls list?
Wow, it’s a good thing Apple does most of my thinking for me…
I’m partial to the stopwatch idea. Clocks mark time; a stopwatch measures time.
“The big problem here is the only way I can get that answer is by making the change, resubmitting the app, and waiting another week or 2 for Apple
I’d be against the hourglass icon, it could easily be confused for the calculation of opposing angles, or how much sand/dirt it takes to fill a hole.
I see essentially that same icon every day in Twitteriffic…!
I’m ambivalent about this change; I can see where they’re coming from. Think about a user who can’t read. I believe that the usability standard they’re trying to promote is that you shouldn’t have to know how to read to use something.
I’m serious, and I know some of you are scoffing: “How do you expect to use this program if you can’t read?” True, but it doesn’t change the principle. Your user is in a hurry, and people don’t read. There shouldn’t be identical UI elements that are differentiated solely by accompanying text.
As to replacement suggestions, my first thought was an hourglass, followed by the digital clock. I kinda like the sundial, too, but it’s probably not iconic enough–too esoteric. Same goes for the hourglass, probably. Probably means “wait” to most people, and doesn’t necessarily convey units of time. But it may be your only choice.
Perhaps a stylized pendulum? As far as instant recognizability, I’m thinking some form of wristwatch is going to be your best bet. Obviously none of these are going to be as spare as your original clock depiction.
Maybe you shouldn’t use 9:00 either. The alarm icon that shows up near the battery icon looks like that.
I noticed another recently approved app that has that same icon (same time and everything). I wonder if future revisions of that app will be rejected too.
I purchased and love both Convertbot and Weightbot, sometimes I open the app just to marvel at the UI. However, a recommendation from a loyal customer, stop the whining. If you don’t want to play by their rules, then you don’t have to play the game.
Good post and good luck with the resubmission.
I’m a developer and have gone through this painful process over the same issues. The approval process inconsistencies are understandable, as there are times when they have to process a huge number of applications and can’t pay attention to as many details, and other times when they try to protect the intuitiveness that is Apple by avoiding misuse of standard icons. That’s a big part of the reason Apple products are easier to use than other, because there IS a consistency in the use of UI elements. The communications is the biggest problem. They are often vague in the rejection letter, and it seems like two reviewers would notice completely different things. They need better standards, and more reviews of the rejections. A fasttrack after rejection would help, along with recognition of prior acceptance of the same design.
Frustrating. We’re in the same boat…waiting for Apple to approve an update that we’re not sure is the actual issue. Another write-up by a frustrated developer here: http://www.juicybitssoftware.com/2009/07/14/3d-camera-lite-rejection/
Apple is manifesting a sour environment with their draconian conduct. Apple only grew in popularity over the past 10 years because they did things right. As they move toward evil from good, they’ll give place to a competitor to arise and overcome them. Something new and superior is coming…
How about instead of a circle around it, have four dots at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock. Plus the hands, perhaps at a different orientation.
iBird Explorer,
iBirdExplorer, one of the most profitable iPhone apps for Apple, stuck in app store review limbo http://bit.ly/11nc8m
Sorry for the previous messy post, thats what I get for trying to do it on the iPhone.
You have every right to rant. This is completely silly, especially given that the app’s been approved before. Just wanted to throw in my support as I love Convertbot.
I don
Great job apple community: Only two uses of the word draconian and both in the comments.
This is the same exact story we had with a few of our applications. In fact it seems that the review process has changed since a few months and they don’t let go applications in so easily now. I agree that the most frustrating is certainly that you have to submit again and again and lose another two weeks before being in production. Even worse : as soon as the reviewer detects something than can cause the rejection of the app, the process stops meaning that any further cause of rejection won’t be trapped and you’ll get another rejection (or two or three or…) !
Apple is really pulling the developers’ legs. They should reeeeeaaaaally make their review process less opaque.
One day it
No problem. Turn the icon horizontally and its fixed.
Maybe an animated icon of an apple that slowly rots in time.
The whole provisioning, profiles, certificates… it sucks
Just a suggestion if case the redesign icon is rejected again.
Perhaps to show that it is a time, the icon can be like big “V”, which points at 10 and 2, like you can see in most of the watches Ad.
Oh yaa… it is really ridiculous that Apple rejected this now. Good luck though for the new icon.
Incredible. Everyone at Apple should get a copy of the bookt “What Would Google Do?” and read it carefully. I am a developer myself, haven’t submitted an app jet but when I read things like this it really makes me angry. Unfortunately, Apple is in control, not the developers. So many folks develop apps these days, that it would not hurt at all if 70% of them give it up. But one thing they should keep in mind: If someone who creates extraordinary great applications get’s kicked in the ass like this, that’s a sign for arrogancy. Well, at least it seems that not only you guys have trouble with them. I read things like this all over the place.
Why don’t you try a sandal. I’m sure they won’t reject for similarity with Windows wait cursor.
I’m a developer who had the pleasure of receiving a auto-generated apple rejection email. My bluetooth data sharing app (iSENDu – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3-9pN9E93E) was rejected because of trademark infringement (according to Apple). I used two rectangles to represent an iPhone (see http://www.ikangai.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/mainscreen.png) which was according to Apple looking way too much like an iPhone. This is very strange, since I wrote an app for the iPhone to share data with other iPhones… So what would be more obvious than to use a symbol that represents an iPhone in the app? After all, I didn’t want to confuse the user ;-). I think that Apple would agree that using a different symbol like – say a shoe or a pink arrow – to represent an iPhone in an iPhone app could lead to great controversy ;-)…
However, I had no choice as to completely redesigned the app. And now? Well, I’m still waiting for an answer of Apple…
Hey Mark, we had the same issue over at Able Pear Software when we used their “camera” icon (used for the photo picker) to take a screenshot of the screen… Same type of message was received from us by Apple. We changed it to a camera shutter icon and the app was approved within a week after the (new) submission.
It’s a tricky game when playing with iconographic representations, as you know now, especially when a device as a set of icons with a understood function. And Apple covers all of this in their docs – which I found out later (as was the case with our using their “camera” icon for the screenshot).
Now I stay clear of all things Apple-iconic when designing icons… just to be safe. (_)
I think an hourglass would be very nice.
Another thing about the icons: Is it possible to redesign the typography icon? In my opinion characters without serifs are more consistent to the other category icons ;-)
Not sure if anyone will read this – but being a longtime Swatch watch fanatic (and having read through a lot of catalogs), I remember that a common clock time displayed when illustrating clocks/watches/time is 10:10 – Would changing the hands position on your icon work?
Don’t forget that the approval process may be tedious, but they do protect us from malicious software.
But on the other hand an image that clearly has nothing to do with Recent/History is clearly B.S.
just point it to four o’clock instead.
It should be okay if you set the time to something different and perhaps have the shorter handing in a dotted pattern, instead of a straight line.
Just a thought
Benga creative
Perhaps substitute the analog clock for a digital one?
when i see hourglass, i thinking “oh snap… my device is going to crash!”. whenever i look at watch ads, the minute and hour hand is usually set around to 3:45. also, maybe you can add a tiny nob on the right side to signify the bezel.
Hey, I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say GREAT blog!…..I”ll be checking in on a regularly now….Keep up the good work! :)
I’m Out! :)