Iphone app rejected.

Question

Hi, I had recently submitted my first Iphone app to itunes connect. After review I got an email from apple saying my app was rejected. The reason they provided was

"Currently the user has to enter their email address in order to proceed to the application.

Applications cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app features and content; such user registration must be optional and tied to account-based functionality as required under section 17.2 of the App Store Review Guidelines https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html."

I will be removing the part where the app asks for Email address from the user, which is actually not required by the app to function. But I cannot remove other information such as Name, Height, Weight and Gender from the app, since these data is required by the app to function (it must be entered at least once by the user. It is saved in a plist after first registration).

Can anyone explain to me what apple is asking from me to revise my app. Do they want me to remove just the email part or user registration all together.

Also when I resubmit my app to the appstore do I need to increment my app version number?

Answer 1

The response clearly states that the registration with the email address is the main problem here:

"Currently the user has to enter their email address in order to proceed to the application. Applications cannot require user registration prior to allowing access..."

Answer 2

Those guys are a pain. Tons of apps need you to sign in, the first one that comes to mind is Evernote, which upon launch will only take you to a screen where you can sign up or log in. I think maybe they were confused and thought you were asking for their email to send them things, rather than to just log in as a username.

I would try changing the email field to one labeled "Username" and then resubmit it with no additional changes. There's no limit to how many times you can submit it, and likely it will go to a different reviewer. I've had my app rejected and then I resubmitted the same exact binary and they accepted it. Go figure ;)

Good luck!

Answer 3

For these purposes you can include a settings section in your app. This can be a separate tab on your application. So that you can remove your login screen.

When the user performs some operation and you cannot continue without these parameters, you can alert the user and redirect to that tab. User shall fill the values in settings section and come back to this screen.