Inconsistency Upsets Me

UPDATE: Air Depth and Depth Gauge are no longer available. Check out Gas Manager on the App Store.

UPDATE: I’ve seeded new versions of each app.


So today version 1.0.1 of Depth Gauge was rejected by Apple. Why? Because it contains a disabled slider control. A control disabled on purpose and for good reason. A control included and displayed to the user for good reason.

According to the rejection letter, Depth Gauge was rejected for two reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t do what it claims in the release notes. This is, of course, utterly wrong. It does exactly what it claims.

Secondly, apparently you aren’t allowed to disable or automatically update slider controls. Say what? No, the HIG doesn’t mention that. No, no other documents I can find mention that. Oh and the SDK explicitly supports both things. Which you’d expect, seeing as they’re useful features particularly in the way I’m using the controls.

By far the worst aspect of this is that version 1.0.1 has been in the queue for about three weeks, for only cosmetic changes. That’s right. This functionality was in the original version. It has already been approved.

So what’s a poor boy to do? Send a nicely worded, if mildly abrasive, email to Apple and in the meantime, try to come up with a work around that doesn’t confuse users.

Ryan Booker @ryanbooker