zlacker

Apple's review process also sometimes felt arbitrary, especially early on, and there's been a long list of complaints over the years that sound just like these.

I used to work in games, and the approvals for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft were all super, ridiculously frustrating at times. We had experiences very much along the same lines of failing again for doing the very thing they asked of us in the previous rejection.

Anyway, usually it works out eventually. No problem with making some noise about it being bad, and hopefully they hear it, but it is not uncommon, nor unique to Amazon.

The point about registering a URL isn't entirely accurate, IMO; plenty of Apple App Store apps consist partially or entirely of webviews. Even for fully native apps, Apple doesn't really have "control" of the code in the sense described in the article. Registration and the approval process are primarily there to give the publishers control over what appears in their store, as well as identify the submitters in a way that attempts to keep a little bit of accountability should they do something bad. Those reasons for requiring registration and review are just as valid for a url as for a bundle of code.

>>dahart+(OP)
My experience in games has been the opposite. As opposed to Apple and Amazon, the console certification requirements are set in stone. The documents are very clear about what you have to do.

>>banana+t2
The requirements are generally much better documented for consoles. But some of the requirements can still be subjective. Edge cases still pop up as well, and the requirements can change over time (especially early in the console cycle when everything is still getting ironed out - nevermind when switching between console generations.)

Even ignoring the edge cases and subjective items, they can be extremely picky about such important things as... leaderboard username terminology. Which will not necessarily be the same across all storefronts from a given company, even if they're all using the same service under the hood.

And then the moment you step into the territory of needing waivers for anything - better hope your publisher has a good relationship to secure those.