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I wouldn't describe it as entitlement. I think one of the issues I would have if I was in this situation is that the developer membership is paid for and the service provider (Apple) is actively refusing to let you engage in part of what you did pay for (the ability to publish apps on the App Store). You can bet that Apple won't give you a refund of that membership fee.
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They provided reasons and it is within the terms of service of what you paid for, they were also able to appeal, and I suggest you check the app and the reference app to which the claim is being made against.
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I mean they are entitled to it in a way. You pay Apple 99 Dollars a year to be able to distribute your apps on the store. Why should apple care if it is design spam or a duplicate of an existing app? Most of the apps available in the store would check those boxes too.
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“Just try an alt store” is a condescendingly flippant comment - there is near zero market for iOS alt stores and most people in most countries have no access either.

My above comment is not an excuse for design spam. The design spam rule is necessary. Your feedback is not.

Synths have never been a high profit business on iOS. And small earners are not a priority for Apple review. There’s a business case for not being bothered with most indie apps.

To suggest there’s categorically no room for innovation or value add with new synth products is just ignorant though.

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There is also near zero market for more Synth Apps at this point so I'm not sure what you want here.

It's like when the App Store started, someone made a Flashlight App and it was cool. We sure had enough of that by now. Now that AI turned everyone into a maker and the bar is lower in a world of abundance, it's only natural that things shift in terms of expectations for distribution.

This is how new markets take shape too, YouTube became so trash that now platforms such as Nebula came out as a business.

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I’m genuinely not sure if you’re doing a bit, especially after explicitly calling out the “entitlement” of the development.

Is “we don’t think there’ll be a market for this” a defensible reason to disqualify an app from the App Store? What’s even your point? You are just looking to be argumentative and pretty clearly have no interest in actually discussing this.

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I'll take the callout, I did get emotional. Reason being is because I have bought over 20 synth apps and have worked in the music industry. Looking at the app and the way they reacted to not getting approved made me upset.
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An Alt iOS store isn't accessible to everyone in every country either as far as I know.
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Everyone is entitled to run whatever the hell they want on their own device. End of.
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Technically, he can run his app on his device.

technically, anyone can grab a copy of source, put their phone into developer mode and install the app too.

But- practically, it's hard.

You only get 4 application slots on devices in dev mode for example and I think they also expire.

I tried creating an internal app for my company and was gobsmacked that I didn't have any sane method to distribute it short of taking full ownership of everyones devices via MDM.

You are of course not allowed to publish "internal" apps to Testflight (or the App Store, but that's more obvious).

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You're entitled to a way to have others try you software on devices they own that doesn't involve paying Apple $99/year for the privilege.
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and you have limitations on app ids. Apple sucks…
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Sure, but this developer wants to publish their app through the App Store. Not the same thing as running on their own device.
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I am not aware of a way to publish an app without an App Store.

At least on Android you can make them self updating and not care about rest of the ecosystem

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You can install development builds on your own iPhone, you just need to enable Developer Mode: https://docs.expo.dev/guides/ios-developer-mode/
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Ah but it is!
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Web page
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Audio software needs low latency. Can you actually make a synth in browser that's good? And integrates with DAWs?
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Is entitlement always a problem? Maybe if apple didn't try their best to hold a monopoly on app distribution for a large percentage of the mobile userbase, developers wouldn't feel frustrated in this regard. Who's apple to decide which apps aren't allowed because they "duplicate existing apps", and how fairly is that even applied? Are calculators allowed on the app store? It seems awfully like they duplicate existing functionality.
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Ok but now explain why there are tons of absolute trash vibe coded apps that barely do anything in the app store?
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First, I am not trusting them at face value. They are building a copycat of Serum and most likely could be doing some level of vibe-coding themselves.

Second, to your point, say we trusted them, it's a chicken or the egg problem. After all the trash entered the space it became flagged and a scale/moderation issue.

The larger problem is the bad actors.

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