Hi everyone,
I'm posting here because I honestly don't know where else to get answers anymore.
I've been trying to release my first app for about 2–3 months now, and the review process has been, frankly, a disaster for us. As a first-time publisher I've genuinely tried to do everything by the book — I've read the guidelines carefully, prepared reviewer notes, a demo account, sign-in instructions, everything that's recommended.
But here's the pattern I keep running into:
- Every submission sits in "Waiting for Review" for around two weeks — currently even longer. I know the official expectation is that most apps are reviewed much faster, but that has never once been our experience.
- When the review finally happens, it stops at the first issue found. Instead of reviewing the whole app once and giving me a complete list of everything that needs fixing, I get exactly one rejection point, I fix it, resubmit — and then wait another two weeks just to learn about the next issue. If I got all findings in one pass, I could address everything in a single build. This one-issue-per-cycle loop is what turns a fixable week of work into months.
- Right now I've been waiting 2.5 weeks for a metadata-only change (updated store screenshots). No binary change at all.
- I've contacted App Review support to ask for a status update and have received no response.
For context: the same app has been live on Google Play for several weeks and is doing well there. We're not trying to sneak anything past review — we want to comply. We just need to actually be told what to fix, ideally all at once, and to not lose two-plus weeks per iteration.
So my questions:
- Is there any way to get a complete list of issues in one review pass instead of one rejection per cycle?
- Is a 2+ week "Waiting for Review" time normal right now, or is there something about our account/app that could be causing this?
- Is there any effective way to get a status update when support doesn't reply? (Expedited review requests haven't helped either.)
I understand App Review has to handle enormous volume, and I'm not looking to bash anyone — but as a small developer, this process has been demoralizing. Any advice from people who've been through this, or any pointers from Apple folks who read here, would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks.