Google is definitely getting a lot stricter about Android apps and within the last couple of weeks I've had 3 of my apps disabled.
- One was for "sexual explicit material" ie. a girl in a bikini on the splash screen
- One was for "violation of intellectual property rights" ie. the app was sort of like a mobile version of Mediafire/Rapidshare, it didn't have anything stored in the app itself or on my servers but I understand why this one was taken down
- One was for "description should not be loaded with keywords in an attempt to manipulate ranking or relevancy in the store’s search results" ie. including a "tags" section in the description
They're definitely policing this shit hard which is contrary to how they used to be. Stuff gets taken down pretty fast too so it seems like they have a huge review staff that looks at every app and removes them even for ridiculous reasons, even though they've publicly said that the only time they'll disable an app is for obvious illegal content or viruses.
I used to think Apple's review staff was ridiculous, taking weeks to review each app and then denying them for silly things that aren't even in the guidelines, but at this point I actually prefer Apple's system because at least they give you an opportunity to make changes and resubmit it as opposed to letting it go online and then completely banning it a few days later. If they review almost every app anyway, why not just review them before allowing them to go live, instead of letting them go live and then banning them?
Just thought I'd let you guys know incase there are any mobile developers here. I always see new devs talking about how they want to make Android apps over iOS apps because Apple polices their shit too hard, but it looks like Google is now going in the same direction and has probably even surpassed Apple in terms of restrictions.
- One was for "sexual explicit material" ie. a girl in a bikini on the splash screen
- One was for "violation of intellectual property rights" ie. the app was sort of like a mobile version of Mediafire/Rapidshare, it didn't have anything stored in the app itself or on my servers but I understand why this one was taken down
- One was for "description should not be loaded with keywords in an attempt to manipulate ranking or relevancy in the store’s search results" ie. including a "tags" section in the description
They're definitely policing this shit hard which is contrary to how they used to be. Stuff gets taken down pretty fast too so it seems like they have a huge review staff that looks at every app and removes them even for ridiculous reasons, even though they've publicly said that the only time they'll disable an app is for obvious illegal content or viruses.
I used to think Apple's review staff was ridiculous, taking weeks to review each app and then denying them for silly things that aren't even in the guidelines, but at this point I actually prefer Apple's system because at least they give you an opportunity to make changes and resubmit it as opposed to letting it go online and then completely banning it a few days later. If they review almost every app anyway, why not just review them before allowing them to go live, instead of letting them go live and then banning them?
Just thought I'd let you guys know incase there are any mobile developers here. I always see new devs talking about how they want to make Android apps over iOS apps because Apple polices their shit too hard, but it looks like Google is now going in the same direction and has probably even surpassed Apple in terms of restrictions.