I didn't invent the format, so I don't have this option. You're a human being. You can call it whatever you want. But you can't assume that users or the operating system aren't going to rename the file. Or, I guess when you open a document, you could check the "document name" and if it doesn't match the document name, then the document is corrupt. Then you can refuse to open it. Personally, I don't think users would appreciate that. Maybe just explain how you didn't invent the format and I'm sure they'll understand. Programmers have been creatively interpreting documented specifications for a long time. I'm not sure what the big deal is.

Storing metadata in a file name is universally recognized as a bad practice. It's also pretty much universally ignored. When you're talking about "documents" and this kind of Finder-driven file name mangling, you're talking about user-created, stand-alone documents. In this scenario, the Finder becomes your document database. And in most cases, that's fine. But if you feel the need to take over file management from the Finder, then you have a lot more work to do. You will gain additional features and capabilities, but you have to do it carefully. And some ideas, like storing the file name inside the document, simply aren't viable in any context. And easy way to solve this is to stop calling it "document name" and call it a "document description". Seems like a minor, pedantic point, but it's important. When you give something a label, that something tends to start adopting all known aspects of said label, whether they're appropriate or not. You can certainly use the document description as a template for a document name suggestion in the file dialog. Since this is no long a "name" in any sense, you're free to mangle it in any way convenient. You should pre-process it to remove any characters that would reasonably cause confusion, i.e. any special or punctuation characters. It's tempting to allow some common ones, but that's where you need to think about who's maintaining your document database. If you're taking on that responsibility, you'll need to think about how you would handle any file name with special characters or punctuation. Just go through the ones you can see on the keyboard and think of how many times each has caused you grief in the past. So if you strip them all out, you give the NSSavePanel API guaranteed valid input. The user can change it and make it invalid, and the OS can change it to make it unique. But that's all outside of your concern and responsibility. And that's a great place for it. If and when you get back a URL, you'll know it's valid, for at least the duration of your file coordination block.

This is a concept I explain in some detail, with links to docs, in Code Signing Identifiers Explained Thanks for the rabbit hole. Found some useful things in there.

Specifically, look at the slide shown at 21:32. AFAICT the schema illustrated by that slide is what’s actually implemented. That's still confusing. Under "AllowPackages", it says "TEAMID_ABC". Then under "AllowProceses", it has the same "TEAMID_ABC" as an array key pointing to what looks like a bundle identifier. I would expect a "package" to use a bundle ID. Processes typically implies PID for reference. Obviously PIDs aren't possible in this context. So is that a bundle ID? Or a label prefix from launchd? And what about a bundle that has sub-bundles with identical bundle ID prefixes? Would a top-level prefix allow both the bundle at the top level and contained bundles? Is the "TEAMID_" prefix required? Or should this be the actual Team ID? If the keys said "TeamIDs" and "BundleIDs", then it would be more straightforward.

I think this is strictly in the Finder. I can freely create files with colon in the Terminal. They work and look just like other files. I can't do that with a slash. I would have to find some Unicode fake slash. And by the same token, I can't create a file with colon using the Finder. I have to use slash to make it a colon. I say go beyond the Finder and reject both colon and slash. It's certainly reasonable for a user to want a timestamp in a file name. But just because it's reasonable doesn't mean they can have that. Bummer for user. What other oddities are there? '.' and '..' of course... anything else? Yes. There's a new ".nofollow" directory with really funky behaviour. If possible, treat it just like "." and ".." and ignore it. If it comes up during any processing, just skip that entry. However, it may appear during bookmark resolution. If that happens, you should probably consider your bookmark to be dead and ask the user for the directory again. Otherwise, there's really no way to tell what will happen with that folder. This area is under active development.

I took another snapshot this morning and ran the numbers a different way. Here is the breakdown for the past 24 hours (10 pages). 19%: Enrolment problems 25%: App Review problems 54%: Technical questions 1%: Solicitations 0%: Spam (already removed, but not zero) 2%: Feedback 1%: Apple So I guess it's not as bad as it seems? But still, I went through a snapshot of 10 pages. How many people are going to go through all 10 pages? And I'm only categorizing by the snippet. Where these posts show up depends on how active each thread is. There are lots of new App Review and Enrolment questions, but they tend not to get any activity. So this is a larger number of posts that will flood the forums and quickly fade away to page 11. Actual questions are likely to get responses and follow-ups, thereby making them over-represented on the first 10 pages. The technical questions are spread over many different categories. I don't know anything about most of them. In terms of that finer-grain categorization, App Review and Enrolment problems overwhelm anything else. So I think my point is still valid. The forum software has the capability to provide a subscription list. The Apple Support Community uses a similar back-end and they have that feature. I agree that private messages would be a good idea. But I don't think the forum software supports that. I'm sure developer support is pretty low on the priority list. Before I did this last exercise, I was thinking that this was a priority 1 problem - Mission Failure, as we used to say. I can't support that position anymore, but it's still a big problem. This is how developers are using the site. This site is just one avenue for developer support. Most people do say they tried other support options first. Maybe a more powerful AI chatbot would be enough. Developers seem to really appreciate those.

this widespread delay has been paralyzing developers for months without any official communication from Apple Well, I didn't say that. I said there has been a sustained and noticeable increase in App Review complaints over the past several months. But even at 24 new posts per day, that's still a tiny fraction of the 25,000 submissions that Apple reviews every day. Some people are reporting delays of weeks. But then some people are complaining about hours. You were complaining about a 17 day wait on your initial enrolment. Ten years ago, when I created my developer account, I waited 4 months for Apple to fill out a one page form for Canada Revenue Agency. But my most recent submission a few weeks ago took a couple of hours waiting for review and then an hour or so in review. I do remember how distressing that initial enrolment problem was. I sure wouldn't to deal with a multi-day or multi-week delay. Apple certainly has problems on the backend. There's no denying that. But there's also no denying that the developers posting these complaints seem remarkably disconnected from both current events and reality. It's difficult to see it from the side of these developers when so many of them are complaining about rejections of astrology, dating, and gambling apps. I'm not joking here. Those categories constitute a significant portion of complaints.

Interesting to note that is is not the case on Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow is dying. Have you seen this chart? https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/437921/how-does-the-continued-decline-in-posts-since-may-25-influence-our-interpretati Perhaps Apple feels that these posts are still engagement and useful for keeping the site alive. Otherwise, the suits might have already killed it. many believe or hope it is a direct channel to Apple to boost or influence their review. Do we know for certain that they're wrong? Unfortunately, some answers from Apple staff like "thank you for contacting us, we shall forward…" is just encouraging the trend whilst bringing no answer (just let the author feel having been heard). I think there is some value to that. I was laid up for a weekend and didn't fell like doing any real work. I tried to go through and give those posts something. I don't know if it did any good. Seemed to annoy some Apple folks. I've noticed that the situation deteriorated rapidly after the change of forum software a few years ago. Yeah. It was a wasteland for a long time. That's what bothers me. These review, enrolment, rejection complaints are engagement. They have livened up the forums. I can't deny that. I just can't help them. It's like with all the other social media sites, you can follow whom you want, and isolate yourself into a happy little echo chamber. You can do that on the Apple Support Community if you want too. But not here. It's like being forced to see all of the posts on X, Facebook, or Reddit. That would drive a normal person insane. If Apple wants to be the only one answering questions, that's fine. Turn off my reply button and I'll go away. But if they're going to do that, I think, they should reply to all posts. Fact is, they could check and reply to someone, "I checked your app, it's properly queued/reviewed." Yeah, they'd need staff for that. Such is life. That's why I'm asking for an unhappy medium. If they want to ghost these people, fine. Just let me ghost them too. I don't know. Perhaps it's a cultural, American thing. I did briefly work on the west coast, in Seattle. Couldn't take it. Went back to Canada. Maybe that's the right way to handle it.

Never use the comments. They hide your replies and only the real nut jobs are going to come back and check for them. I agree that this is silly. But it's the law. And (large) property owners can call upon state-sponsored violence to enforce their pedantry. You can complain about it, just don't violate it. Also note that this enforcement is optional and selective. Just because you see some trademark being infringed with abandon on the internet or on the App Store, doesn't mean you won't pay the price if you try it.

I haven't tried any beta builds (or even updates) recently. macOS 27 ships with Python 3.9.6, so any CVEs from later versions wouldn't apply.

For context, it looks like NSDataAccessSecurityPolicy was mentioned once in a WWDC 2023 video (What's new in Privacy).. And that's the extent of its documentation. I don't see any existing 3rd party or system apps that have ever used it.

I left a descriptive note and a reply to the rejection; hoping an actual human reads it. I guess I'm thinking if that's the mechanism most easily afforded us (developers, submitters), then they should be pretty proactive about looking at those responses. I don't know. You were rejected under the spam category. That's a policy rejection, not a technical rejection. If you click on that link to the 2025 Transparency report, you'll see that Apple gets 25,000 submissions a day. And that was before AI slop. You've already been classified as spam, so they might not spend any more time on it. I get spam too. Maybe those are real investment opportunities, but I doubt it. I'm not going to spend any more time than it takes to click the spam button. I've already mentioned the other contact mechanisms provided to developers, this is the 3rd time now. If you've got "hands on" people, then maybe they would like to do a zoom call with App Review to discuss the situation.

How does a legitimate application that wants to use the Greek word for twin submit an application? Submit it using Google's developer account. Sorry, but this is how trademarks work. There's the legal angle. Anyone can submit a trademark if they can afford the legal fees. A trademark might even be awarded if the relevant authority approves. But in a capitalist world, might makes right. Google owns Gemini, end of story. What if I was making an astrology application? Your app would be rejected in milliseconds under 4.3. (I spend too much time here in the forums, so I've learned the rejection paragraph numbers. 😄 ) Would I have to pick a new word for the zodiac sign? Or an application that shows constellations? Even if you were developing an astronomy app, which would be the only acceptable way to touch upon these words, you would still be well-advised to avoid that particular word. Google owns it now. Such is life. In that instance, I would also recommend avoiding the name of the constellation "cancer" as that could trip some AI somewhere and get your app rejected for being an unauthorized health app. I'm not joking here. I could probably "get by" not mentioning the zodiac sign or constellation by name. But that's not exactly an option for a browser for the Gemini network. Why not? People do that all the time. Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Brave, Chrome, Safari, Netscape. Make up a name. Be clever and inventive. Don't forget to check both USPTO and your own country's trademark registry, if not in the USA. I tried replacing all mentions of "Gemini" with "Geminispace" (the word the network uses to reference its network of servers). Gemini is dead. Don't play with dead things. I obviously don't have the clout to take on Google and its massive marketing engine, but it feels wrong that they can just take over a word like that. Is there really no option for using a real word in the store descriptions if a giant corporation has decided to use it? It's actually much worse than that. Even a much smaller company will choose violence when protecting their IP. At one time, I was "Harmony Software". I was the first "Harmony Software". That was a great name. But I was too poor to keep it so someone else took it, just like that. Cease and desist. And you want to challenge Google, eh? The Gemini project is an interesting idea. Kids today have probably never heard of Gopher. How about the "Prairedog browser"? The Gopher that refuses to give up! And get active in the project and convince them to pick a new name. Gemini's taken.

Anyone else seeing waits this long right now? It has been a non-stop deluge since February, 2026. I'm seeing about 20 new posts per day on the topic. So I guess the answer to your question is "yes". And if it gets approved, does an update usually go through faster There's no way to extrapolate information from nothing. I can tell you what people say here in the forums. I can't tell you what people don't say. I can tell you that I have seen numerous examples of people with established accounts and submission history unexpectedly hit with review delays. And curiously, people who encounter unexpected delays measured in hours seem much more upset than those with delays measured in weeks. should I swap the build while I'm waiting? That would be an effective strategy for ensuring that your latest build is always in queue. Sent an expedite request It seems like everyone does this now. Given that Apple is now using AI for reviews, it's possible that any developer action may be fed back into the review model. So if there are strategies that seem popular among the people posting here in the forums about their delays, rejections, and account terminations, it might be a good idea to avoid those strategies.

dozens of developers are experiencing this issue during this period What is "this period"? This current deluge of developer forum complaints started around February 2026 and has continued unabated. The other day, in response to one person's question, I did a quick check to count how many new app review complaints (new, not replies) had been posted in the previous 24 hours. In that time frame, on a day that seemed remarkably light in app review complaints, there were 17 new app review complaints.