Small ways the App Store could be improved for developers

Small ways the App Store could be improved for developers

March 30 2026

The 50th anniversary of Apple’s founding, on April 1 1976, is this week. The App Store, which opened on July 10 2008, almost 18 years ago, has existed for more than a third of Apple’s corporate lifespan. My view, as an App Store developer for 9 years, half of the App Store’s lifespan, is that Apple has neglected it, taken the App Store and developers for granted, because iPhone and iPad are locked by Apple to the App Store, making it the sole method of software distribution for third-party developers on those popular devices. While Apple fights world governments tooth and nail to preserve its App Store lockdown, Apple remains complacent in appealing to App Store developers.

I’m not going to debate the major, controversial App Store policy issues here, such as Apple’s cut of developer revenue: 15% for members of the Small Business Program like myself, 30% for other developers. My argument is that even at the reduced rate of 15%, developers are not receiving their money’s worth in services from Apple. Call the commission an “access fee” if you like, but Apple isn’t doing much to help us after we get access to the App Store. Thankfully I don’t hear as much anymore the ridiculous claim that Apple is doing our marketing for us, perhaps because App Store users can’t avoid noticing the prominent paid search ads. According to Apple’s most recent quarterly financial results, the gross margin on “services” was 77% ($30 billion net sales and $7 billion cost of sales). That is gross! In other words, the App Store is practically printing money and profit for Apple, without much investment by Apple back into the App Store.

There are countless small, practical, mostly uncontroversial ways in which Apple could improve the App Store for developers, yet the App Store has changed relatively little in the 18 years since it was hastily cloned from the iTunes Music Store. Below is a list that you can count, numbered for easy reference, though not in any order of importance. Some of the ideas come from me, some from other App Store developers whose ideas I solicited. These changes to the App Store would not require a huge financial investment from Apple. They would simply require Apple to care about the App Store and developers.

Publish current average Waiting for Review times.

When we submit an update to Apple for review, we have no idea how long it will take to be reviewed, making it very difficult to plan releases. Lately, my Mac App Store versions have taken unusually long to review, sometimes four days for some reason, which I’ve never seen before.

Allow developers to replace a build while still Waiting for Review.

Sometimes we discover a bug or other issue with the app after the app has already been submitted to Apple but before it has started review. In order to fix a bug, we have to remove our own submission for review, upload a new build, and start the review process over again, going to the back of the queue. It would be nice if we could keep our place in the queue and simply fix the bug before Apple reviews the app.

Allow multiple platforms builds (iOS, macOS, visionOS) to be submitted and reviewed together instead of forcing separate submissions.

My app StopTheMadness Pro is a Universal Purchase for iOS and macOS, yet Apple forces me to submit the iOS and macOS app updates separately, each going through an independent review process, perhaps with different reviewers, that can take different amounts of time and have different outcomes, even though I release these updates simultaneously. Ironically, Apple is actually punishing developers for making native apps on each of Apple’s platforms! (In contrast, if I made an “iOS app on Mac,” then there would be only one review.) We should be able to submit app updates for multiple platforms together, so that one reviewer will review all the platforms at the same time.

Allow revision of App Store metadata after an app version has already been published.

Apple reviews your App Store metadata such as What’s New along with your app. Once the review is completed, you can’t change the metadata. If you publish an update, then discover a typo in the release notes, too bad!

We should be able to edit the metadata after an app has been published. Apple can of course review the edits before the metadata is changed in the App Store.

Allow developers to revert the published version of an app in the App Store to the previously published version if significant new bugs are detected.

Send email notifications when an App Store user publishes a new review.

For some bizarre reason, Apple sends us an email notification when an App Store user edits their preexisting review of your app but not when an App Store user writes a new review of your app. Every day I have to manually load twelve App Store Connect pages of reviews (which I’ve bookmarked)—five...