SongBook iPhone Removed From Sale
I’ve taken the difficult decision to remove SongBook from the Apple App Store. The reason is that the currently approved release, version 1.0 has difficulty finding Linn products on a number of networks. I have fixed this issue in version 1.0.1, but it has so far twice been rejected from sale by Apple.
I believe that it is best for new users to wait for the updated version rather than risk frustration with version 1.0. I am also risking bad reviews on the App Store, which will stay present long after this issue is resolved.
This is very frustrating as 1.0 was approved for sale, yet 1.0.1, a better version has been rejected twice for either trivial or incorrect reasons. This has taken two weeks so far, and looks like taking at least a week longer to resolve.
The rejection emails are under NDA, so I cannot post them here. The first rejection was because SongBook would not ‘produce sound’, completely missing the point of the application I believe, as SongBook is a ControlPoint application for Linn DS players, it does not attempt to produce sound in any way. I sent a detailed reply to this email and got a terse response asking me to please resubmit the application, which I did.
The latest rejection is for two reasons, firstly SongBook crashed when attempting to play a Movie file. This is valid in that SongBook shouldn’t crash, but almost useless as a test as Linn DS players are music players and don’t play movies. I will fix this issue and resubmit, but yet another week has gone by. The second reason is more interesting in that I assumed that Apple do not have a Linn DS for testing, I believe this to be the case as the response from Apple detailed their test setup and did not mention Linn at all. The exact wording of the error was ‘in most instances, no music would play’. Which I would expect if there was no Linn hardware, in fact I would expect that in ‘all instances’. So either they do have a Linn DS, or the wording of the email was incorrect. I have asked for clarification on this issue.
The big issue here is that version 1.0.1 is better in every way than 1.0. 1.0 was approved (probably without testing it appears), but I cannot get 1.0.1 released due to misunderstandings and minor errors. This is very frustrating for all potential users of SongBook, and especially frustrating for people that have purchased a copy. Anyone that has contacted me with issues I have sent an updated copy of SongBook using what Apple call Ad Hoc distribution. This is time consuming for me and for users, but at least it gets them going. And it does prove that version 1.0.1 does work reliably.
In fact I have been sending out version 1.0.2 for recent requests. This version has a tidier user interface, larger album art display in the library listing, and support for selecting preamp source.
I’ll keep you updated with progress.
Edit: If you do request an Ad Hoc Distribution copy of SongBook I need your device id, you can find details on how to locate it here.
One Response
- Oliver Meyer
December 15th, 2008 Wow, that is terrible. I’m glad I read this! Very informative. I’m sorry you had to go through this. This isn’t the first thing I’ve heard about the App Store “approval” situation…
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