Apple's Draconian Rules are hurting culture and knowledge and they refuse to see

Hi there. I develop video courses. I have spent months creating new courses and then months packing everything inside apps for iOS, Apple TV and Mac. This is almost a year of work, 14 hours a day.


Now Apple have rejected the courses for "lack of functionality".


I have researched the app store and saw that all courses there are old, with no update. Now I understand why. Apple is rejecting everyone and blocking knowledge.


Following the rejection I have received a call from an Apple engineer who suggested two new functionalities for the app, in order to be approved. I have added the two new functionalities and the app was rejected again.


What someone downloading a course can expect from a course? Watch the lessons, acquire knowledge or culture and improve at a personal or professional level.


For a company that claims to be on the intersection of arts and technology, they don't see that this draconian rule is hurting exactly culture and knowledge.


They tell us that videos should be sent to iTunes for sale but they don't mention that in order to do that you have to hire the services of an aggregator, paying good money for every course you create, per year, so you can have your videos on iTunes.


This rule may be valid for other apps but it is crushing courses and knowledge.


Said that, my app has 4 buttons basically (what do you expect of a video course?)


  1. the list of lessons, a table view you can select a lesson to watch.
  2. a bookmark button, you can use to save bookmarks storing the video/time to watch later.
  3. a share button, you can share screenshots or notes to messages, email, etc., add notes etc.
  4. a button where you can access PDF documents that the user may need.


Please, I ask you guys what more can I add to pass this draconian rule?

It's hard to comment on a UI design unseen so I'm not sure you'll get an answer to your question (even if it's not intended as rhetorical).


I think, however, that Apple's frequently made point is that not everything needs to be an app. Books aren't apps; music albums aren't apps.... A corollary to that has been that not every app needs to be on the App Store; some can provide all their functionality as web apps.

SImple functionality you can consider adding:

  • Interactive quizzes (including a review and links back to the relevant segments of the video).
  • Convert those PDFs which aren't formatted for TV or whatever mobile device is being viewed into a format easier to view.

Otherwise, you've just spent a lot of work when the people looking at your videos are probably asking "Why didn't they just make a YouTube channel?"

And, honestly, have you looked into the possibility that you should have organized an aggregator or whatever it is that you need to be to publish videos to iTunes instead?

Answering you...


1. youtube channel - I have a youtube channel where I post a lot of stuff for free and also a website where I have thousands of pages with free tutorials and videos but, unfortunately, I have to pay bills and cannot give everything for free.

2. Agregators cost big money and I am 99% certain that they do not accept video courses, just movies and music.

3. Regarding to this course in particular, the PDFs are needed in PDF form. I cannot disclose that right now but imagine a course about on how to fill the IRS form, then you provide the form in PDF, just in case, saving the user a search on the web. In my case, some of the forms are created by me for the course.

4. Regarding interactive quizzes, this is a good idea! THANKS!

Ok, I agree but then they should provide means that we can use to upload it to iTunes or as paid content to iTunesU.

iTunes does not accept video courses and iTunesU does not accept paid content.

Apple's Draconian Rules are hurting culture and knowledge and they refuse to see
 
 
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