When it comes to the apps that ultimately get the OK to appear on the App Store, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of strict criteria in order for your app to be approved. Any iOS user can tell you about the countless apps that are terrible that manage to sneak through regularly, but now it looks like the company is getting a little stricter when it comes to the naming of apps.
It has been recently revealed that Apple has been refusing to release apps that include pricing information like “free” in their titles for about a month now, stopping app creators from trying to get more traffic whenever someone searches for free apps. “Your app’s name, icons, screenshots, or previews to be displayed on the App Store include references to your app’s price, which is not considered a part of these metadata items,” reads the first part of the rejection notice.
The rejection notice goes on to say “Please remove any references to your app’s price from your app’s name, including any references to your app being free or discounted. If you would like to advertise changes to your app’s price, it would be appropriate to include this information in the app description. Changes to your app’s price can be made in the Pricing and Availability section of iTunes Connect.” This was confirmed by Chris Apostle, chief revenue officer at mobile marketing company Moburst, who had regularly inserted “free” into App titles before more recent ones started getting rejected.
It doesn’t look like the company has started to clean house of all of the apps on the App Store that currently have free in their title, of which there are many. However, the fact that they have at least begun to get a little more strict with approving apps is a good sign, and will likely lead to an app catalog that has at least slightly fewer underwhelming apps to sift through.
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