Analysis: The impact of Apple’s App Store restrictions on the industry and how to get around them

The saga continues for Apple app developers with setbacks and long, anxiety-inducing delays in App Store acceptance resulting in businesses being thrown off their product cycles.

The case against Apple’s strict App Store guidelines is strong. At least according to the few businesses that claim they have met all the requirements for native iPhone features and unique design elements that separate their app from their mobile web offering but are still waiting to be accepted into the Store.

As EGR Technology previously reported back in March, the industry is harbouring some suspicion that the unwavering tech giant that is Apple has it in for real-money gambling apps (RMG). While it is certain the updated app reviewing process is proving damaging for businesses, the extent to which the former statement is true has yet to be determined.

Apple recently released an interesting insight into its reviewing process, presumably in response to the swathes of bad press the firm has received from disgruntled developers. “All developers have the opportunity to have a rejection reviewed by the App Review Board. And the App Review team makes about 1,000 calls a week to developers to help them diagnose and resolve any issues that led to rejection — so they can get their app onto the App Store,” the statement read.

SwiftUI is a modern UI framework that makes it fast and easy for developers to build native apps across all Apple platforms

“We created the App Store Review Guidelines to provide clear guidance to developers on building the best apps for our customers. The five pillars of the guidelines — Safety, Performance, Business, Design, and Legal — require that apps offered on the App Store are safe, provide a good user experience, adhere to our rules on user privacy, secure devices from malware and threats, and use approved business models.”

Hold up

The online gambling industry, however, argues against the process’ inconsistencies and claims the system is rife with examples of major setbacks to app launches and relaunches. One example that sparked the inspiration for this follow up piece is Bet Blocks. The social betting app had to postpone its launch a number of months after being declined by Apple’s review team, and then experiencing a three-week wait for a renewed review.

“Apple advertises that it approves 95% of apps within three days and it took them three months just to get around to looking at our app, then they reviewed it for 10 minutes and declined it. They gave us a very vague clause within their guidelines. The clause included everything from imitating another brand to attacking the App Store. We couldn’t understand and asked for clarification. After three weeks of no clarification they just approved it. We advise start-ups within the network to start that process early if they can,” Bet Blocks founders Jonny Robb and Nilesh Mistry previously told EGR Technology.

Across the pond

Stateside rumours attributed long-wait times for Apple approval to the delayed launch of Pennsylvania’s online betting market, as operators scrambled to be among the first to set their products live in the state. At the time of writing, Rush Street Interactive was the first to soft-launch its online offering.

The claim comes across as somewhat farfetched from a European perspective, after all bookies ran exclusively on mobile web and via third-party apps on Android phones until 2017 when Google began to accept the first wave of gambling apps into the Google Play Store in a handful of European markets.

US-based lottery start-up Jackpocket, a B2C app that offers mobile access to a number of state lotteries and is innovating in the wider lottery space in the US, is steadily growing its userbase despite not listing on the App Store nor Google Play Store. “I think real-money gambling apps were a little bit lazy with their technology. People want to have one good base to roll out on all channels but I think they were neglecting their userbase to be honest,” CEO Peter Sullivan says.

Product manager at NetEnt Mostafa Essa credits the US setbacks to complex geo location technology, which operators must adopt to operate legally in the States, and the fact many apps are wrappers of their mobile sites, which is a staunch no-go for Apple as per its 2019 guidelines.

Add to that the increase in workload Apple reviewers have faced since PASPA was repealed and New Jersey became awash with betting products, founder of Tinder-style betting app Bookee, Adam Wilson says.

Waiting game

Back in Europe, the challenges of launching and re-launching in the App Store are leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of many operators, and even apps that sit outside the real-money gambling space are facing similar difficulties, particularly if Apple confuses their gambling affiliations. One such example is Fireswan, a direct-to-consumer app that enables punters to formulate betting strategies and formulas.

“Apple is very strict with usage of copyright symbols and signs. We had trouble and had to remove any football team logos as Apple didn’t accept them. They even mentioned we couldn’t use some team names but we are lucky because one review team rejected our app for this reason and after resubmitting a different team accepted our application,” says founder Max Shyrokiy.

Fireswan found itself in a tight position, in that Apple took it to be affiliated with or attached to RMG. “They treat this category as a risky one and the review process can take up to a month [as they claim]. For us the process took three or four weeks to get approved. We had to resubmit it and answer some questions but the entire process took three to four weeks,” Shyrokiy comments.

His key piece of advice for similar app creators is to keep up good communication with the Apple review team they’re dealing with.

“My view is that the App Store doesn’t benefit from us as an industry,” Bookee’s Wilson suggests, in response to the hotly debated ‘Apple versus the gambling industry’ conundrum. “From our experience the main problem is length of time to review. From submitting a build for review to approval used to take two days. Since the start of the year it’s taken an average of two weeks for us [to have our updates reviewed and accepted]. We are a fully native app so it’s not guideline related.”

Operators to have been hit hardest by the stringent guidelines are thought to be some of the big UK players including Ladbrokes Coral, Paddy Power Betfair and William Hill. The new rules dictate apps cannot be wrapped versions of their mobile sites and must include native functionality, an area many fail in by building in HTML5.

“Apple is very strict with usage of copyright symbols and signs. We had trouble and had to remove any football team logos as Apple didn’t accept them.” – Max Shyrokiy, Fireswan

An anonymous tech staffer at one major bookie told EGR its competitors had attempted to roll-out “under the table solutions” to resolve the issue of having their apps rejected from the App Store. “They were using business accounts which are not traditionally looked into by Apple because it is an internal store that employees should have access to but in this case the end users also had access to it which is not allowed,” they said.

Well-established operators have declined to comment on their struggles but from the stories told by new start-ups entering the space, it is seriously impacting the sector. Although William Hill lead architect, Ciprian Negrila did tell EGR: “We followed the rules as they were written which means our applications contain enough native functionality to not be considered web-based applications. Like others in the industry however we’re facing some headwinds and we’re working through to get some clarity from Apple.”

Shyrokiy adds: “If you are honest with reviewers it will make the process easier. We are a mobile application only so everything we have in our iOS application is developed that way. There are no limitations in terms of functionality and there is not much native iOS functionality present. We don’t use Touch ID. Our application is quite simple from the front-end perspective.”

Under review

Managing director for gaming content supplier JakDigital Patrick McKay says the reviewing process is taking much longer than it used to but for those that adhere to the guidelines, the app will eventually get published. “Assuming you haven’t been red-carded for previous issues,” McKay adds.

One such shift in development processes that has been cited before as a sure-fire way to avoid any issues with Apple and integrate full native functionality is the development of progressive web apps which give users a native-like experience with a user-friendly opt-in installation flow.

Shyrokiy claims bet365’s app is built using this new technology, which might explain why the operator has seemingly had no issues and is yet another example of the Stoke-headquartered giant leading the technology charge.

The uncertainty around the reviewing process remains and many believe it to be largely random, but as it stands operators cannot afford to be blocked from the App Store as punters will very likely go elsewhere for their entertainment.

Update on 4 June 2019: As of September, RMG apps will not be able to run HTML5 games and functions built in HTML5 and integrated via third-parties. Such features were already being flagged up by the firm and one reason why many RMG apps faced rejections, but Apple is now taking a more stringent approach and imposing an absolute ban.