Second Rejection of MultiPaaS Coupons iPhone app

We just received another application rejection. The first one was due to the use of an undocumented API, used to terminate the application cleanly. I can understand that one, even though they didn't give us a documented API to handle terminating the application in a standard way. Instead, they expect us to use exit()!

Anyway, so here is an excerpt from the e-mail we were sent:

Your application, MultiPaaS Coupons, cannot be submitted to the App Store because it uses a standard Recents button for an action which is not its intended purpose.

The first frustration is that they could have found this during the first pass! Why didn't they send me both problems at once if they were so worried about it? My guess is that they just have multiple people handling these applications and the first one didn't think it was a problem.

Anyway, this is my response:

I disagree with this assessment. There are two standard Tab Bar buttons that use the exact same image: Recent and History. The only difference between these two buttons is the words that are used. The only commonality between those two terms is that both are based on time (the icon itself is a very simple clock) and they happen to both be periods in the past (one recent, one further in the past).

MultiPaaS Coupons uses a similar image to these (again, a simple clock), but uses a different word, "Expiring". Again, the concept is temporal in nature so it should not be confusing to users. The only difference is that it represents a concept in the near future, i.e. "soon". Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable, according to the specification at least, to reuse the icons for the same purpose. The usage should be obvious because different words are used.

In the case of coupons, "Expiring Soon" means that these coupons are really important, similar to "Recent" items in other applications. Conceptually "Expiring" is more closely related to "Recent" than "History" is, yet "History" uses the same icon as "Recent". It should not be confusing to users to see an icon of a clock and think "oh, these are coupons that are important because of something based on time."

In fact, because the icon is a simple clock, anything temporal in nature is fair game from a user interface perspective. If the icon were more complex (such as a clock with some annotation indicating the past) then it would be appropriate to limit it in some way.

I completely agree with standards and not confusing the user, but let's not go overboard and reserve a simple iconic symbol like a "clock" to always mean "recent". Let's give our users a little more credit than that.

Regards,
Michael

P.S. Is this the only problem with the application? Or, are there other problems that you will find later? It would take much less actual time to get the application into the App Store if we could get more than one problem at a time. This is the second problem the team has found and it could have been found at the same time as the other one and therefore we could have had this conversation earlier while I was fixing the other issue. Thanks for understanding!

We'll see what they say about the response, and I'll work on another icon just in case, because whether it's fair or not, they have all the power, and they can choose to wield it at will.

Update 6/1: Got a nice call from Apple today about my iPhone app. The guy was really helpful, and he encouraged me to resubmit with new icons. Actually, I was impressed that they called at all, so I've resubmitted with all new icons. We'll see what happens next in the saga! Eventually I'll need to update my screenshots, but not tonight.