I think I might have a case of app review phobia.
So a while back, I launched an app called Teleplayer. It lets you AirPlay a list of videos to your TV. It also has a feature where you can rewind twice with the Apple TV remote at the start of a video to go back to the previous one.
But I’m not sure if App Reviewers will approve this feature. What if they reject the app for not using the remote as intended? I still remember the Camera+ app got rejected for using the volume button as a shutter button. (Later, Apple added the same feature to their own camera app.)
In a later update, I added a feature to prevent the display from sleeping when the app is open, because AirPlay stops when the display sleeps. Again, I’m not sure if this is allowed in the App Store. Can an app prevent the display from sleeping? Will I get rejected for battery life concerns or something? What if it’s allowed, but the app reviewer doesn’t know or care? I went back and forth about how to phrase my changelog. In the end, I went with “bug fixes and improvements.”
During the app review process, I even removed some text from my launch post because I was scared the reviewer might read it and learn about the features. Then, I put the text back once the app was approved. I don’t know when software development became this stressful.
(By the way, if you’re wondering why the Web Inspector extension hasn’t been updated, it’s because it was once rejected because the reviewer didn’t understand it. They asked me to record a narrated video walkthrough of the features. I did, and the app was approved, but that’s my least favorite part of updating the app. It killed all my desire to update the app.)