Past the Ternus Horizon

**Marco Arment** (0:00)
I have a happy thing and a annoying thing. Okay, I'm going to start with the annoying thing.

**Casey Liss** (0:04)
Yes, please.

**Marco Arment** (0:05)
I have been waiting 12 days for launching my new app. I've been waiting for app review.

**John Siracusa** (0:11)
Two turtle doves.

**Casey Liss** (0:12)
And a partridge in a pear tree.

**Marco Arment** (0:14)
I wanted to launch it today. I wanted today's show to be all about my new app and promoting it. And I even set a pre-order date from today, thinking like, obviously in 12 days, because I submitted it on August 1st, today's August 12th, obviously 12 days is enough to get at least one loop around from app review. And if they happen to reject it the first time around after, you know, two to seven days, I will be able, obviously, I'll be able to just push that date back and do the whole thing again. And the Mac app was approved after six days, which is a lot.
And the iOS app is just sitting there waiting. I filed a ticket today. No response. I don't know.
App review is really having problems only in the last month or so. It seems like review times have spiked up to like six days for most apps.

**John Siracusa** (1:01)
I can't imagine why.

**Marco Arment** (1:03)
But OK, so everyone's like, yeah, it's vibe coding. Yeah, but vibe coding didn't just start last month.

**John Siracusa** (1:07)
I know, but it's like, when do people, you know, when do people start doing it, playing with it, figuring they're going to put it up on the store? Like, it's kind of like, you know, a thing that builds like a snowball. And as this as you frequently point out, when people are stuck in traffic, you are traffic. You're some kind of a vibe coded app. You're one of the traffic people.

**Marco Arment** (1:24)
It's partly AI coded. I didn't vibe code the whole thing. But in fact, I've worked most of the code in it.

**John Siracusa** (1:30)
But anyway, it's Apple's job to get the review times under control, regardless of the spikes in traffic. They just want to be stingy about it. And it gets harder when there's bursts. But it's like, look, you chose to be the, as the you would say, gatekeeper. So figure out how to get it done.

**Marco Arment** (1:45)
That's the thing. Like, you know, I feel like in times like this, I think Apple often sees itself as the victim of external forces.
That is certainly the impression they give off. And when you talk to people inside, they definitely have a victim complex about a lot of things. And app review, it seems like they've always kind of seen themselves as like, well, when times explode, it's obviously because the external world is forcing upon them some factor. Oh, all these people are submitting updates all at once, or oh, AI coding is making their spam attempts or whatever. It's like, they created this whole system. They put themselves in this position and they control everything about it. So it's a problem of their own making, and it's going to require a solution of their own making.
And the direction the world is going, where a lot more people can now make apps, didn't just start last month. So they had a lot of time to observe this and to try to make changes, to scale up. And maybe they have scaled up, but obviously they haven't set up enough and the system is breaking.

**John Siracusa** (2:44)
Well, you'd use a lot of different theys in the subscription. There's the they that are complaining of victimization. There's the they that shows the app review system. There's many theys and they're not entirely overlapping. Obviously, if you work in app review and you're overwhelmed, you're not the one setting the policy for the app store. But then there is the larger they, which is Apple Leadership, which did set the policy for the app store and is ultimately responsible for crappy review times. And yeah, there's many overlapping theys. But from the outside, it's just Apple and they're not performing well in their self-appointed duty to be the sole app store for the phone.

**Marco Arment** (3:17)
And we have no other choice. The reality is my development has screeched to a halt because I can't ship the software. I have the Mac app, which is approved and waiting, but I can't release it because the in-app purchase that it needs is submitted with the iOS app because there's no way to make one submission that covers... When you submit a new app to the app store that requires an app purchase, you have to submit the in-app purchase itself for review as part of the submission of the app.