August 22, 2009
40 staffers. 2 reviews. 8,500 iPhone apps per week
CNN publishes interesting insight on Apple's App Store approval process. The details come from Apple's response to the FCC's July 31 letter of inquiry into why Google's Google Voice app has not been approved.
Apple looks at every app it receives — 200,000 so far — pouring in at the rate of 8,500 new apps and updates per week.
-- The company employs 40 full-time reviewers; at least two reviewers study each app.
-- Apple has established — it doesn't say when — an App Store executive review board that sets policy and reviews app that have escalated to the board because they raise new or complex issues.
-- Apps are reviewed for just what you'd expect: bugs, instabilities, privacy violations, stuff that little kids shouldn't see.
-- Apps are also reviewed for the stuff that gets to the heart of the matter: use of unauthorized protocols and "applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone." This presumably covers Apple's contractual obligation not to overtax AT&T's (T) fragile 3G network with TV or VOIP.
But the amount of time they spend is pretty limited. CNET's Erica Ogg has done some quick back of the envelope calculations and determined that 40 people looking at 8,500 apps and updates during a regular five-day week works out to something like six minutes per app per reviewer.
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2009/08/024297.htm
| Tweet |
