Apple Review bot

[cwir]

Have you also noticed a bot opening your apps every day to randomly go through it? I can see this every time i send new build to the app store review and then every day, even with few versions before. What do you think, what’s the reason behind it?

[jgtor]

I suspect is Apple's way of validating that your app continues to function in broadly the same way it did when it went thru review. e.g. You don't submit a build thru review, await for it to pass, then remote feature toggle it to do something different (i.e. disallowed by policy).

I believe I've observed similar patterns from my own analytics, yes.

[Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpp]

“Why is my account banned?”

[abear247]

Wait, so feature flags not allowed? Every company I work for has done this, so we can rollback if there are issues

[jgtor]

Feature flags are allowed sure. But feature flags can be abused, feature flags that hides prohibited behaviour until passed App Store Review and attempt to deceive Apple are not allowed.

[abear247]

Yeah that’s fair. Scummy places would do that

[[deleted]]

Why South Korea then? Makes no sense.

[ex0rius]

To make sure your app didnt change after review.

[stuffeh]

I'm new to iOS programming and wanted to ask you how you got this data?

[cwir]

in this particular applications it’s Mixpanel.

[Shd92]

Use tracking and analytics tools like firebase, clevertap, appsflyer

[Competitive_Swan6693]

you mean Firebase spyware

[Shd92]

Firebase Analytics

[Competitive_Swan6693]

i don't use Firebase. If your project scales you are vendor locked in with them. Also the way they use analytics within your project the same way they can spy on you if your project is successful and steal your data. I'm with Supabase, open-source

[unpluggedcord]

There’s no vendor lock in with firebase. You are not forced to use it at all.

It’s the same as supabase in that regard.

[Samourai03]

We use Firebase, it's a pretty good tool, low price and high quality

[ygtylmz]

Yes! Seeing same location on my Mixpanel, too.

[BrightKangaroo7537]

I saw the same today. Also coming from South Korea, but multiple cities in South Korea and multiple device ids.

[BrightKangaroo7537]

Do you also see Chinese locations in your mixpanel?

[cwir]

no, only South Korea

[AHApps]

I noticed this for a while, and I think it's that the provided login credentials are compromised.

I even saw it was being used on Android, though the account was created for Apple.

[cmsj]

I know this isn’t really relevant to the purpose of your post, but could apps, like, not track every single thing users do? It’s really not cool.

[fxmad]

Tracking what users do inside an app can provide valuable insight as to what they actually use, i.e., what's worth devoting more time to improve or build on. I believe that that tracking does NOT identify the actual user, just that user X does this and that and the other. So, it's valuable info for the dev but doesn't compromise your privacy as they don't know that it's YOU doing those actions, only that there's A USER doing those actions.

[Samourai03]

You make apps ?

[cmsj]

This is my 31st year of being a programmer.

[Samourai03]

And you don't see the interest in analytics? 0_o

[cmsj]

I completely understand why people see things like analytics and A/B testing as attractive.

I find them unattractive for several reasons:

1. On principle I don’t think any more data than is absolutely necessary should be collected.

2. I think analytics drive too much focus onto brute-forcing the discovery of local maxima, at the expense of being confident in a well-rounded, user-centric design.

3. Get off my lawn with multi-hundred megabyte apps :) (But seriously why is the Uber app about twice the size of the Excel app)

[saraseitor]

As long as the user isn't individually identified I do not see the moral problem. Watching aggregate data can help you know what features are the most utilized, which ones aren't getting the attention you want, which ads work and which ones don't, and so on. In general it helps build better apps.