recent discussions on the Apple Developer Forums show developers reporting considerably longer waiting periods, including submissions remaining in "Waiting for Review" or "In Review" for several days or weeks. It's good that you're aware of the App Transparency Reports. Some statistical analysis might be useful here. The developer forums only display a total of 10 pages, with 20 threads per page. Based on my past efforts to look at this issue, I can tell you that this is about one day's worth of posts. With over 9 million submissions a year, that's 25,000 per day. So an upper limit of complaints is 0.8% of submissions. Of course, that's just the people who complain, not everyone complains. But by the same token, not all posts are App Review complaints. And those who do complain, sometimes do so repeatedly. In terms of looking for interesting posts in the developer forum, it's overwhelming. It seems much worse over the weekends too. But it's obviously a tiny minority of all submissions. In terms of expedited review requests, among those people who complain here in the forums, an expedited request seems to be automatic. That's clearly against the design and intent of the expedited review service. I encourage anyone to click that ">" 10 times and review these complaints themselves. It might be enlightening.

I'm trying to understand the recommended, App Store-compliant approach rather than relying on temporary sandbox exceptions. There is none. Direct integration with the Finder and Terminal is strictly off limits. Is there an officially supported way for a sandboxed app to retrieve Finder's current selection when triggered by a global keyboard shortcut, without Apple Events? No. But you can create a service that the user can invoke via Finder's context menu when selecting a folder. Obviously this is not the same as what you're asking, but that's as close as you can get. Is accessing Terminal's current working directory supported under App Sandbox with explicit user consent? No. Terminal-savvy users can access your app from the command line. However, your app would still be sandboxed and unable to do anything with files in the current Terminal directory. Are Finder Sync extensions, Accessibility APIs, macOS Services, or other frameworks recommended for these use cases? No way to say without knowing what you're really trying to accomplish. Are temporary Apple Events exceptions generally unsuitable for Mac App Store distribution, even when the interaction is explicitly initiated by the user? As I said, App Review doesn't allow any apps to directly integrate with the Finder or Terminal. There are other ways to achieve some of the same results, if only I knew what those were. Also, it's important to remember you're talking about your app. Apple's app really aren't that reliable. Apple regularly changes and breaks them with no warning. Plus, with these kinds of integrations, you're unhorsing yourself. It's better to keep the user inside your app whenever possible. Don't treat Apple as the primary developer you're trying to integrate with. Treat Apple as your competition.

these issues don't negate the importance of transparency and accountability. Addressing fraud and maintaining clear communication with legitimate developers are not mutually exclusive. I completely agree with you. But I have no influence. The best I can do is give other developers suggestions on how to best manage life in the world as it is, not the world as we would like it to be. They're asking for enough clarity and consistency to make informed business decisions, particularly when platform changes affect products they've invested significant time, effort, and resources in building. Why can't lack of clarity and consistency inform business decisions? It sounds like you're paying too much attention to marketing. If you focus on actions and practice, you'll see much more clarity and consistency. I also don't think raising concerns should automatically be dismissed as complaining. What is it then? And what are these "concerns"? The material facts are readily apparent. You can't change them. People have been lighting up the forums for months on these issues. What has been the material result? Apple updated the App Review Guidelines to add some links to existing documentation. Congratulations! Your voice has been heard! Understanding the market means understanding the risks associated with the platforms on which a business depends. OK. Now we're making progress! Constructive feedback is one way to address those risks and encourage meaningful improvements. Feedback does absolutely nothing for risks. I agree that it does encourage meaningful improvement. But what's the material value of encouragement? Community forums exist for exactly this reason: to give people a space to share their experiences, express their frustrations and concerns, learn from one another, and offer encouragement. Not every post needs to be a solution or a success story. Sometimes, simply sharing an experience helps others realize they're not alone, brings attention to a common problem, or encourages a meaningful discussion. There you go again with that encouragement. The goal isn't to change Apple's business model or demand special treatment. It's to encourage a more transparent and predictable ecosystem that benefits both Apple and the developers who contribute to it. Holding a platform accountable and encouraging constructive dialogue aren't signs of entitlement; they're part of building a healthier developer community. I encourage you to do some research on the effectiveness of "holding [something] accountable" and how often it leads to a "healthier" community. Spoiler alert: it never works and has never worked. Not even once. It's performative nonsense to confuse, obfuscate, and distract. There are actions you can take - actions that will help you and your business become more successful. But those actions do not include complaining, encouraging, or providing feedback. You're focusing on trying to influence Apple. That's simply not going to work. The only thing you can change is yourself. As someone once said, "first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly".

There may be a bug somewhere in the developer website. I was able to accept the agreement and clear that banner. But I've been unable to clear the expired credit card banner.

Seems very out of character for the brand How so? I agree that it doesn't meet your expectations. But in situations like this, I always assume people are doing their best - even if we would like their best to be better. If any fellow developers have any insight, please share. From what I understand, based what I've heard at WWDC and other ways of "reading between the lines", teams at Apple are much, much smaller than people think. They see the market cap, the revenue, the products, and they envision this army of people. Apple has 160k employees, but most of those people are in retail, engineering, etc. Support always gets table scraps. And developer support is even smaller. And this was before AI slop. Whenever possible, stay in the automated flow. It's natural to assume that if you could just reach a human being, you could get the problem fixed. I can assure you, from direct, personal experience, that's not true. But it's also important to focus on material conditions. Yes, 30% is a lot. 15% would be better. You think you could get better rates on your own. You can't. I've got personal experience there too. You can't imagine how anyone could be worse than Apple support. I assure you, they can be worse. Apple's not the best, but Apple's far from the worst. It sounds like you're a new developer. Unfortunately, there's no way out of that. You're just going to have to wait. Write more apps. Keep testing. Above all, don't get rejected. Realistically, building a successful app business takes years, not weeks or even months.

Are you a member of any team? Or are any other developers a member of your team? I've heard of those kinds of problems showing up like this. That being said, Apple's back end definitely has problems. I was able to clear the banner for the updated agreement, but I can't clear the banner for my credit card expiring. It's possible that Apple's database went down after I accepted the agreement, but before I updated my credit card. But judging from the Javascript console logs on account.apple.com, things are a royal mess in there. And that's an end-user support system dedicated to payments. You'd think they want that kind of system to be reliable. Apple's Developer-support systems are always much less reliable than anything user-facing.

Did they change their approach or did time heal it? What other approaches are there? People have tried vast amounts of AI slop. People have tried rapid submissions and multiple rejections. People have swamped developer support. People have swamped the developer forums. People have swamped the expedited review queue. If it gets any worse, people might be forced to submit higher-quality, better tested, more innovative apps that end users want to buy. But I don't know if anyone has gotten that desperate yet.

when a platform benefits from developers building on it, there’s a reasonable expectation of accountability, transparency, and consideration for the people who help create that value. Not all developers are helping to create value. There's a huge amount of fraud. And more recently, there's been a huge amount of AI slop. That's what's causing the delays. the solution doesn’t have to be seizing the means of production That was only half in jest. A firm understanding of Marxist theory would really help most developers. If you read carefully, you'll notice that at no point does Marx ever say anything about the capitalist giving the wage labourer clear communication, predictable policies, meaningful support, or an acknowledgement of of any decisions. Marx says quite the opposite, in fact. As for the plan... Now that was totally in jest. Am I the only one who remembers lyrics from The Beatles' "Revolution"? developers shouldn’t have to demand basic transparency every time something changes Developers have done nothing of the sort. Begging on the developer forums really isn't making demands. And I'm not saying that developers need to run to the press, to politicians, or engage in any kind of class-action lawsuit. Again, Marx has the answer. Focus instead on material conditions. Apple is going to be far more invested in developer success than any journalist, politician, or lawyer. As difficult as it might be, Apple does provide an avenue for developer success. Those other folks I mentioned care even less about developer success. If a company wants people to build their businesses around its ecosystem, it should take that responsibility seriously. Who says they want that? Apple's focused on its own business and its own customers. The best way to succeed in the market is to understand it, not complain about it. You can't change Apple and you can't change the market. You can only effect change on your own company and your own product.

Is it normal? Yes. It's completely normal. If you make an error, or even if you haven't made an error, anytime you need human intervention, you're in for a world of pain and possibly months of delays. Realistically, your best hope is for them to just reject your application in a few weeks. Then you can try again with the correct information. But don't put any hope in support tickets. There are ten pages of post listings here in the forum. That constitutes about 1 day's worth of activity, 200 posts. Every single post is saying they open multiple support tickets. So you're going to be waiting behind all of those people. You can certainly try support requests. Just don't get frustrated and upset when nothing happens. The best option is always the automated flow. In your case, the automated rejection and resubmission flow might be the fastest option.

It's always risky trying to integrate with Apple's own apps. Plus, in this modern age of paranoia, security restrictions may impact Apple apps as well as 3rd party apps. This file is in your app's container. I don't think what you're trying to accomplish is documented in any way. The only documentation and API support is to prevent the action you describe. I think there are multiple other APIs to get data (or "document data") from one app to another. But then monitoring the other side is, at best, risky, and often flat-out impossible. The user can always rename or save elsewhere. If your app is claiming it can monitor that activity, the user is going to blame your app when it fails. Then there's a more existential issue. You're essentially unhorsing yourself. You want users to use your app. The last thing you should ever do it launch someone else's app, even Apple's. It's your app. That's your user. Keep them in your app. Maybe you can use PDFKit and do those same operations totally inside your app.

you’d expect a little more accountability, transparency, and respect for developers who rely on your platform I think your analysis is flawed. Respect does not follow from dependence. At this point, capitalism is truly at its peak: record-breaking valuations, but seemingly zero urgency when it comes to supporting the developers who help build the ecosystem Are you proposing that developers seize the means of production? Or do you have some other solution? Well, you know. We'd all love to see the plan

688 yuan converted to US dollars is $102.82.

I'm curious whether anyone here has experienced an app being stuck in Apple's review process for an unusually long time and eventually received approval. The answer to your question is "Yes". I'm particularly interested in hearing from developers whose apps were delayed for more than just a few days. There's a fundamental problem with your request. You're asking for feedback from other developers. But in order to see your question and answer it, developers would have to read your question first. No one experiencing any of the commonly reported issues ever reads any of the previous posts that are identical to the problem they are reporting. Just consider your own question. You could easily answer all of these questions yourself. The forums are totally swamped with these exact issues. So why are you asking for feedback when all you have to do is click the little ">" button at the bottom of the page 10 times? Note that 10 pages is the limit that you can easily navigate. That will give you about 1 day of activity. I can assure you that the activity of the past 24 hours is identical, in absolutely every respect, to the activity of every other day since around February, 2026. And in fact, one of those most commonly posted requests is a plea for feedback from any other developer who might have encountered any of the issues that will fill up 10 pages of forum post listings in a single day.

I believe that this is allowed by the copyright holder, see this Q&A article: https://deltarune.com/help/#policy That page clearly refers to in-person activities at conventions ("at cons"). The App Store Review Team does not agree and now I don't know how to continue. Does anyone have experience with this? Contact the copyright holder and ask for written permission to include the character in your sticker pack.

My document is a Canadian passport but my business is in the US... I see many people posting reports of problems with this kind of setup. Unfortunately, most of them are reporting a problem from a later stage - filling out tax forms. Why don't you just enrol as a Canadian? Or as a Canadian business?