Most of us are presuming.... You submit your new app. Apple starts the review process by placing the app "in Review" The app now gets reviewed. But are we not possibly missing a major step. You submit your app, the review team actually classifies and picks the reviewer or review team before the app goes into review. Then the chosen reviewer(s) then place(s) the app "In Review". Anyone able to shine some light on this process? I am presuming there is something going on because certain apps ( miserable ones to review) kind of take a lot longer to change to "In Review"
I don't have a ton of incite, but I'll share this: the review teams are just that. They broken down into smaller teams. Each team will have a queue to pull from. Once a particular app is assigned to a given team it will remain with that team through future updates. So the person who reviewed your app the first time just might end up being the same person who reviews your next update. Something else I've heard is that contrary to what some may think this work is not sent to teams in India or anywhere else abroad. Those teams are located in Cupertino. ___________________________ Cricket Words by Think Tap Work
Thanks Jeremy, The going from "Waiting for Review" to "In Review" has been so inconsistent for us that it is really starting to affect our business. We have an app now waiting 18 days to change into review. It is worse now for Mac updates they simply just sit around even though Mountain Lion caused our grief. Not really a great time to have specialized in building Mac Apps.
This is by no means a solution (certainly not in the long-term), but have you tried requesting an expedited review? We had to do this recently for a client of ours and it worked out well for us. Problem is they make it pretty clear that this is only for rare cases. I've heard they'll basically give you one a year and no more. Obviously your question is about a broader concerning trend in the app review process, not a particular app. _______________________ Cricket Words by Think Tap Work