Apple is killing white labeled iOS apps! What should we do?

Question

Many companies rely on white labeled apps to provide their services in a more personal way to their customers.

With a few adjustments we can set a logo and a splash screen and even pre-configure our app to our customer needs which has a great impact in their end user experience. Without this my users would need to use the app skipping a lot of configuration steps that in a generic app wouldn't be possible to skip.

According to apple: "Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected"

Now what can we do to to work around this?

Today I saw 4 apps being rejected and others are waiting for revision and I can anticipate that they will have the same ending.

Here's the revision result: "4. 3 Design: Spam"

Guideline 4.3 - Design

We noticed that your app provides the same feature set as many of the other apps you've submitted to the App Store; it simply varies in content or language, which is considered a form of spam.

The next submission of this app may require a longer review time.

Next Steps

When creating multiple apps where content is the only varying element, you should offer a single app to deliver differing content to customers. Alternatively, you may consider creating a web app, which looks and behaves similar to a native app when the customer adds it to their Home screen. Refer to the Configuring Web Applications section of the Safari Web Content Guide for more information.

• Review the Design section of the App Store Review Guidelines.
• Ensure your app is compliant with all sections of the App Store Review Guidelines and the Terms & Conditions of the Apple Developer Program.
• Once your app is fully compliant, resubmit your app for review.

Submitting apps designed to mislead or harm customers or evade the review process may result in the termination of your Apple Developer Program account. Review the Terms & Conditions of the Apple Developer Program to learn more about our policies regarding termination.

If you believe your app is compliant with the App Store Review Guidelines, you may submit an appeal. Alternatively, you may provide additional details about your app by replying directly to this message.

For app design information, check out the following videos: "Best Practices for Great iOS UI Design" and "Designing Intuitive User Experiences," available on the Apple Developer website.

You may also want to review the iOS Human Interface Guidelines for more information on how to create a great user experience in your app.

Of course we can develop web apps, but apple can't forget that many features are only available in native or hybrid apps.

What should we do?

References:

• https://blog.summitsync.com/did-apple-just-crush-white-label-apps-4aee14d00b78
• https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

Bernardina

Any update on there by 2021? Is there any movement from developers to boicot this mesure from APPLE? The are simply killing some business in the maketing. – Drive

Answer 1

The current answer is out of date. Apple revised their guidelines in which the customer must have their own Apple account now, paying the $99 a year. You can then submit a white labeled app under that account. We have been doing that the past three months with no problem. They wouldnt allow this approach before but now they do.

The Apple developer account can not be an individual account, but a company, educational or government type.

If you have a few apps under the same company account you can submit the apps if they can be proven to belong to the current company. We have three apps submitted under the same company account because the apps shared similar names to the company however I wouldn't do this for different companies.

Hybris

We also tried that and it worked but I didn't know that they had changed the guidelines. Is there a reference to the guideline that proves your answer? – Bernardina

From: developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines 4.2.6 Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected unless they are submitted directly by the provider of the app’s content. – Devi

@Neil, We are experiencing the same problem. Did you find any solution to this? We have individual accounts for individual apps. We are also considering Enterprise Account distribution for this. – Hellkite

@Bernardina Are you able to publish white-label apps from developer account by changing it from individual to company type? – Quintile

@MikeFlynn How do you come to know that switching from individual to company account will work? Did you try it or is it written somewhere? Would be of great help if you send me an authentic link to it. – Quintile

It's 08/2021. Apple is no more complaining with white labeled apps. Same account can be used to deploy multiple rebranded apps. – Bernardina

This is not true, and you should not chance it. If you keep doing that they will eventually block your account from doing that or upgrading current apps. You should follow the guidelines. – Hybris

Answer 2

We where having the same issue. We have talked to Apple, which where very kind and understanding. Our app is one used mainly bij employees of a company and there for Apple suggested to use B2B app distribution via Volume Purchase Program.

If your app is just white labeled app that business can use for their customers then you are out of luck. Apple will not allow any white label apps in the app store any more. Your option is to make one app which can switch between the different customers. If you app is like web store this can be difficult, but as per Apple's example of the fan app of a football club switch per club should be in one app.

Megaera

Actually we already provide a generic app which can be used by all of our clients and their respective customers. The problem is that this app has an extra layer of configuration where customers are forced to setup the application manually, for example, identifying their service provider (one of our clients) to only then let them login to their personal space. The biggest issue is that business clients are not interested on generic apps. Instead they look for a personalised version of the app where the initial configuration can be skipped and the app name and UI is unique. – Bernardina

Well Apple does not allow these app in the AppStore. Thus if the app is used by a company and it employees have a look the B2B app distribution. – Megaera

ok - so we'll all move to "container" apps, but how are we supposed to do search optimization? We have a travel app with potentially hundred(s) of destinations. We published as whitelabel until now, but getting rejections on new apps/destinations and even on updates of existing apps. We can't just write each destination in keywords as it has 100 chars limit. What will uses find in case of search terms like "Paris guide". This really doesn't make sense at all :/ – Taxiplane

This is not true now. You can submit white label apps under a company account they own, just not your own developer account. – Hybris

@MikeFlynn yes this is again true, but when I wrote this post it was not allowed. Apple changed the rules. – Megaera

Do you have a link to the "fan app of football club"? And I'm not clear why so many developers seem to have a problem with this aggregated or picker model? – Quathlamba

"fan app of football club" is an example given by Apple. There is not such app. Apple has been les strict, allow companies to have whitelabel apps under their own account. – Megaera

Answer 3

Had a call with Apple on July 13, 2020, 5 PM (GMT)

I had a conversation with the app review team regarding this matter today and I have concluded the following.

1. You can have the same codebase, same color, and same design for multiple apps but, a big BUT, is that you need to have some unique functionality in the app which provides a different experience to users.

2. They clearly said it's a difficult thing to do for developers and should take a longer time.

3. Only a way to know if some unique feature will work out is to send it for a review. It doesn't matter how long you have spent on developing that new feature. They also said they cannot help and is not permitted to insight anything beforehand.

4. They cleared that this is not a technical or logical issue to be resolved. For example, they are not going to check if the app icon or color is going to match with other app and decide it a spam or not spam but they care how users will be experiencing this app with the "WOW" factor or the app usefulness.

In short, the app must give another perspective to the user and the app should insist the user to use it because it has something new to give.

Quintile

The problem here is that they never clarified the scenario where a company X, who offers customized apps to their customers Y (B2B) which are meant to be used in B2C (by Y customers). Which means, the app looks the same (different colors, fonts, icons, splash....) but in the end they provide the same level of functionality but to different companies and different audiences and even communicate with different servers. Which means, there has to be different apps. – Bernardina

@Bernardina how have you resolved the issue? we have the same problem :( – Him

Answer 4

4.3 is a complete mess. With its active enforcement, Apple has indeed opened a Pandora's box. The biggest problem is that this policy is applied randomly.

My experience suggests that there are very few App Store reviewers who are paying attention to it during the review process. However, if you stumble upon such a reviewer, they will put some flag on your file, and all other reviewers will start to evaluate your apps for spam going forward. It seems like nothing is wrong with this approach, but it can lead to a distorted market.

In our case, we are waiting for years now to see Apple apply the same rules to our competition as it did to us. And the most ironic part is that throughout these years we've been ringing all the possible bells. Emails to Apple representatives, release notes, responses in resolution centre – nothing works.

For more details about our story check my Medium post. I have also written a second part which contains the timeline of my discussions with Apple representatives in which I highlighted competitors who violate 4.3, and Apple did nothing :(

So, the first problem with 4.3 is that it distorts the competition given how selective Apple is at implementing it.

The second problem is that the policy itself is too vague. Take our company, Theory Test Revolution, as an example. We build apps which help people pass their UK Driving Test.

Although we focus on theory tests, the reality is that our apps could be used as a platform to prepare for any multiple-choice test. Imagine if we wanted to release a couple of other MCQs apps. For example, to prepare for PADI diving exam and also to prepare for some pilot's licence exam.

How would 4.3 apply in this case? Would Apple demand that we bundle all of them in one app? How would we call it? :) "Any test you can imagine"? :)

There must be some limits. There are cases when marketing needs justify releasing separate apps even if their foundation is the same, as doing otherwise would simply confuse the users. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't care about fair competition enough. I guess their goal is to reduce the number of apps using this policy, with little regard to how fair this process is.

We are waiting for almost three years now to see our competitors being treated in the same way. And who knows – how much longer do we need to wait?

Lithomarge

Answer 5

According to section 4.2.6 of: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#design

Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected unless they are submitted directly by the provider of the app’s content. These services should not submit apps on behalf of their clients and should offer tools that let their clients create customized, innovative apps that provide unique customer experiences. Another acceptable option for template providers is to create a single binary to host all client content in an aggregated or “picker” model, for example as a restaurant finder app with separate customized entries or pages for each client restaurant, or as an event app with separate entries for each client event.

So, rejoice! your apps can in fact be white labeled! they just must be:

submitted directly by the provider of the app’s content

Soldo

it doesn't work, we got reject anyway – Him

Answer 6

There is nothing you can do to make Apple approve a copy of your app with only images and labels changed, it was their politics since iOS 3.

The only sure way you can do it is by creating a new developer account for the company you are selling the personalized version.

And B2B is also a viable option that also saves your client the 99$ yearly Apple bill.

Devilmaycare

This will also not work, Apple will still reject the app even if it is under an other account. We had some app under different account an the update for these where reject as SPAM. VPP and B2B app distribution is your only option. – Megaera

I thought about this option too but I've the feeling that this will not work. The app is still a personalised version of a white labeled app so there's a big chance of getting rejected, specially if they are submitted with short interval between them and revised by the same person. – Bernardina

@Megaera this is not true, we have an official reply from Apple dev support that says that a personalized app for one of our clients will be approved if it's published under their account. Attention: it must be a personalized build, not the same white labeled build with different assets. – Devilmaycare

Well I have 6 app reject by apple, under different account all reject because of the SPAM clause. They are all white labeled apps. – Megaera

@Megaera are that accounts company accounts of your clients? And btw if done right you can publish them under the same account, don't trust me? look here: itunes.apple.com/us/developer/coges-mobile-solutions-s-r-l/… – Devilmaycare

They where normal Apple Developers account on company names. We still got them rejected. After a call with apple they made it very clear that they are cleaning up the AppStore and if they found a whitelabel app they will reject it. – Megaera

They all got reject because of the new rule: 4.2.6 Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected. – Megaera

@Megaera again you are incorrect, read this blog post that summarizes situation on 4.2.6 and templates: apptooltester.com/… If your app is rejected try harder to personalize it. – Devilmaycare