How do I incorporate geofencing into my marijuana themed app to get it approved & onto the app store?

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Created Mar ’16

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I developed a weed themed music app that I submitted to apple for review & it was rejected. It's essentially a music player that showcases fake pictures of glass pieces & weed in a novelty way. The user can interchange the background, pipe & weed(Which is the meditation music) on the screen for a fun novelty style experience. The apps main focus is to support musicians creating music for the app.

We submitted the app to the review board & it was rejected due to the content. Since the rejection I did some research & realized that apple does allow weed themed apps as long as they use geofencing so only users who are in a legal state for marijuana can download & use the app. What steps do I need to take to incorporate geofencing into my app idea to get it approved by the review board & onto the app store?

Any help/info is greatly appreciated!

Answered by KMT in 119632022

>it was rejected due to the content

What, exactly, did the rejection state?

Answer 1

RLKingSoftware OP

Mar ’16

You're going to find yourself fighting windmills here. Most states still hold "weed" as a category 1

illegal substance so, unless your app is only available in Colorado, Oregon and parts of Washington

you will have a very hard time limiting it to just those places. Better to drop the marijuana and illicit

consumption device depictions and support the actual music you claim your app is meant to promote.

Edited to add.

You do know that most people using "meditation" apps only LISTEN to the content right? The images

have nothing whatever to do with meditation which is generally performed with eyes closed.

As an aside, you cannot restrict which state an app can be downloaded in. Only which country.

Answer 2

KMT OP

Mar ’16

Accepted Answer

>it was rejected due to the content

What, exactly, did the rejection state?

Answer 3

iTokeapp OP

Mar ’16

Here's an article I found on the subject.

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/apple-now-weed-friendly-app-store-allowing-marijuana-themed-apps-states-pot-legal/

The novelty behind our app is that you can playfully pretend to smoke. Once the bowl is lit using the microphone or play button a brainwave meditation song plays. The song can be changed by changing the weed. Our goal is to make it a fun interactive music player with the benefits of the brainwaves. There's an app called iSmokeWeed that basicall does the same thing & reggae music plays when the weed is lit. They've been on the app store for awhile along with other apps that you can pretend to smoke weed or tobacco. This style of app I made would do extremely well with people who smoke & seeing all the weed apps on the store makes me think there's something specific I'm overlooking to get it accepted. We could defitely ditch the weed theme all together but before dismantling the app & spending a lot more money/time on changes I figured I should push to see if our idea is even possible with geofencing or location services to get into states that marijuana is excepted(Medical or 100% legalized).

Thanks for the help!