Last Friday I submitted my first app—Countdowns—to the App Store, and then the waiting began. I knew it wouldn't get looked at over the weekend, but I was hopeful I'd hear something by Monday, maybe Tuesday. Today is Wednesday and I woke up to an email from Apple.
Rejection. Oof.
Intellectually, I had prepared myself for this. After all, this is the first time I've ever submitted an app to the App Store. At my previous startup, my partner John handled all of the iOS stuff, including App Store submissions. And our app, Numerous, was rejected plenty of times, for various reasons. But this one felt different—it felt personal, probably because this time around I'm a solo developer.
Of course it wasn't personal, it was about an implementation detail in how I told users the app needs permission to access their calendars and contacts. As it turns out, Apple wants a very specific flow for this request and I simply hadn't followed it. My bad. (Well, Claude Code's bad, but I'll take the blame.)
I was able to implement a fix and resubmit in just a few minutes. Now we wait… again.
The fact of the matter is that if you want to create anything, you're going to face criticism and rejection. That's just the cost of doing business. Sometimes it's a lukewarm reaction from a friend. Sometimes it's a "pass" from a potential investor. And sometimes it's a rejection from an anonymous App Store reviewer citing "Guideline 5.1.1" and telling you to fix it and resubmit. So it goes.
Even when you expect it, rejection can still sting. Once something is real, there's no such thing as "low stakes". When you expose your work to external judgment, you make yourself vulnerable. But getting that first rejection can also be strangely validating. You're no longer thinking about it, or planning it, or even coding it. You're doing it. The battle is joined.
So I've resubmitted the app. Hopefully this time it passes. In the meantime, I've used this episode as a learning opportunity and added an "App Store pre-review" step to my internal workflow.
Onward.
Update: I fixed the issue and resubmitted. It was accepted and Countdowns is now available on the App Store!