Submission and Review Process
You’ve built your app. Now what? With our newest video series, we’ll support you through the app store approval process. This week, we’re jumping into the ‘Demo Mode’ phase.
Mission Impossible
00:00:32:28 - 00:00:57:28
There's this great scene in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol where Ethan Hunt, you know, makes something look like a body floating down a stream, right? To distract the guards. And one of the one of his, you know, fellow agents looks at him and says, how did you know the guards were going to fall for that and go after him? And he says, these guys are Rhodes Scholars. You know.
Demo Mode
00:00:58:00 - 00:01:18:26
Okay, so here is the second chapter of our app store submission review process. And we're going to kind of skip ahead a little bit and talk about demo mode. So we build a lot of apps around here that either talk to a backend service, talk to another app, or talk to an appliance. Think like internet of things and networking and storage and stuff like that.
The Challenges
00:01:18:28 - 00:01:44:17
And one of the challenges we have is you submit an app for review for submission. Right. And the reviewer, of course, doesn't have access to that appliance or service or whatever. You cannot get them to log in to a real back end. You cannot get them to say, for example, go through an SMS text, verification process, think like, you know, Amazon Cognito or Google Auth, stuff like that.
The Process
00:01:44:17 - 00:02:08:04
They just won't do it. So you have to build in a canned, username and password that lets them get in. Unfortunately, the bad news is usually you can't really interact with these backend services without a real authenticated login. So in the early days, we had this app called ‘dont’, which was kind of an app so that parents could monitor their teen drivers, right, while they're driving in the car.
Dont
00:02:08:05 - 00:02:46:02
It's kind of a cool app. We got a patent audit on that, and when we took it through the review process, they immediately ran into I can't do anything because it all hinges on kind of a sort of a parent-child relationship inside the app. So we then filmed a walkthrough video, right, showing them how to do everything. And then we submitted it to the App Store and Apple was sort of okay with that. This was maybe three years ago or something like that. And then we submitted the same video to Google Play. And of course, the folks at Google said, oh, that's filmed on iOS. Rejection. So we went back in and refilled it.
Owlcam
00:02:46:02 - 00:03:07:06
So essentially we had to create four videos, you know, two each for iOS and Android. Now fast forward to now, right? We're now, for example, working on Owlcam, right? Owlcam is a next gen AI driven dash cam. And the app that we built allows you to manage and interact with content on that Owlcam. And guess what?
Rejection
00:03:07:09 - 00:03:25:13
Without an Owlcam, without the actual physical dash cam, there's not a whole lot you can do. So what do we do? We did the same thing again. We filmed demo videos and we submitted them all through the App Store. And they were like, rejection, right? The Rhodes Scholars were not happy with, with just a simple filmed walkthrough, and they insisted on a full demo mode.
Final Approval
00:03:25:15 - 00:03:46:02
So we had to actually go back in and create a canned username, if you will. They then activated a demo mode so you could go through the app and see sample videos and pretend to change settings and all this nonsense. And when you go to do that, you have to be very careful that you don't create a defect in the app for when real users go into use.
Trial and Error
00:03:46:02 - 00:04:06:06
It wouldn't go when Demo Mode was shut off, which of course happened. So just kind of be aware of that and you won't find anything in the App Store review guidelines that tells you about all this stuff. This is another example of, you know, spray and pray. Basically you you submit app something to the store. It's a roll of the dice to see which Rhodes Scholar ends up reviewing your app.
See You Next Week
00:04:06:06 - 00:04:24:06
And then you just have to pivot and adapt. Anyway, like subscribe, follow us, whatever. And if you have any funny anecdotes from the app store review process, be sure to put them in the comments below and we'll follow up next week with tales from the In-App Purchasing land minefield. Bye.
Ken Krutsch is Founder & President of KRUTSCH, a digital product design firm. From concept to delivery, KRUTSCH specializes in designing consumer and commercial applications. We generate and execute ideas, finding opportunities for our clients to innovate. Because solving the right problem builds careers, organizations, and professional relationships.
Follow KRUTSCH on LinkedIn to read the follow-up posts in the series.
