Submitting Apps to the Google Play Store is a terrible experience

Recently, I embarked on the journey of submitting an augmented reality brain training app to both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. It was… an experience. Let’s just say one was significantly less painful than the other.

The App Store Experience

My experience with the App Store was surprisingly smooth and efficient. The process looked something like this:

1. Submitted the app for review.
2. Within a few hours, I received a rejection with clear, understandable reasons.
3. Fixed the issues based on the feedback and resubmitted.
4. Went through two more quick iterations like this.
5. The app was approved and live on the store within two days.

The feedback was actionable, the communication was clear, and the turnaround time was incredibly fast. It felt like a professional process.

The Google Play Store Experience

Now, let’s talk about Google Play. Where the App Store was a pleasant stroll in the park, Google Play felt like crawling through broken glass.

1. Submitted the app for review.
2. Rejected with a cryptic, non-understandable reason.
3. Spent time digging to guess the potential issue, made a change, resubmitted.
4. Rejected again, this time for a different opaque reason.
5. More digging, identified another potential issue, resubmitted.
6. Rejected again, this time for a baffling metadata violation concerning screenshots – specifically, that they didn’t depict actual in-app content. No explanation was given as to why they didn’t think they did.
7. Changed screenshots, submitted again. Rejected again. Changed again, submitted again. Rejected again. And then… my account was locked.
8. Sent an email appeal to unlock the account.
9. Appeal rejected with no real reason stated. (Learned later that they apparently suspend accounts if they have too many rejections in quick succession. Nice.)
10. Sent another, longer email explaining the situation in detail.
11. Account was mysteriously unlocked without any response or notification.
12. Completely reworked the screenshots (making sure they were literal captures from the app with no mockups or overlays) and submitted again. Rejected again, still no additional info.
13. Sent an appeal specifically asking where the problem lay.
14. Response finally came: the screenshot still didn’t capture the in-app experience.
15. At this point, I was baffled. The screenshots were the app. I sent an email with a video demonstrating exactly how to navigate within the app to the screen shown in the screenshot.
16. Response: still a rejection, same non-understandable reason about screenshots not capturing the in-app experience.
17. Completely reworked everything again, including the description, and sent it in for yet another review. At the time of writing, it’s still pending. Wish me luck.

Conclusion

To say working with the Google Play Store was a pain is an understatement. I genuinely expected the App Store to be the more difficult platform, given Apple’s reputation for strictness, but my experience was the complete opposite. The App Store was efficient and helpful; Google Play was frustratingly opaque and led to excessive, time-consuming iterations and account issues.

Reading online, it seems my experience is far from unique. There are countless reports of similar struggles with unclear rejections and slow, unhelpful support from Google Play. It makes the app submission process an absolute nightmare. Hopefully, someday they improve it, but based on current evidence, I wouldn’t hold my breath.