1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app
2. Apple rejects it
-or-
2. Apple approves it
3. I ship a new update
4. Apple rejects the update and now decides my app should have been rejected retroactively.
I'm especially concerned about what happened to Hey and others but my customers are demanding smartphone apps and there are still limits to what can be done with a mobile web browser.
Apple provides screenshots and human written explanation on rejection. I have even talked on the phone with review team several times to discuss the problem.
Yes, it sucks that the update may be rejected by some reviewer and another one may approve the same update.
I was more than glad to receive a f..g phone call from the reviewer telling me why he will reject my update, why is it this way and what I can do to make it pass and give me his phone number to call if I need further assistance.
I become die hard Apple AppStore review process fanboy by getting a rejection!
You know what happens when you get a rejection from some other place? You get a template e-mail with no specifics, good luck figure it out. Tough luck if your livelihood depends on it.
I closed the phone and 5 min later I received the rejection together with the talking points that we went through on the phone.
I also suspect that Apple is trying to make sure that the same app is reviewed by the same employees. I think I dealt with the same 2 people in multiple review issues in later updates.
Sometimes it was frustrating when I have a rejection about something that was previously approved but it was resolved every time when I explain the problem and the solution in the notes to the reviewer section. I think I have a friendly reviewer that sends my updates straight to the store in 6 hours and there's another one who is being hard on me and needs to be convinced every time. Regardless, I am happy to be able to explain things to people.