Apple’s App Store Approval Process Called into Question

If you’re a game developer, you might think that the process of publishing a game and making it available for people is exceedingly difficult. And why not? It’s fair to assume that the people making money on this would want to avoid incomplete work, and avoid any kind of false advertising. But, at least for Apple, this might not be the case.

An anonymous source lead the Indie Game Magazine team to an app that is currently available for download in the app store with a ridiculous title. Here’s the name of the game: Flappy Bird: touch on the white piano tiles angry candy go boom beach tile don’t temple surfers step tap quiz up star crush hit saga 2 family wars guy farmville 2048 subway run farm heroes heads sim-s hbo spotify horde of pandora birds free games. This isn’t a joke by the way, the app is available right here.

The game is essentially a copy of the popular game Flappy Bird with slightly different graphics. But the actual name of the app once downloaded is Fly Bird: speed. But that’s not the real issue here. The real issue is, how and why did Apple allow this game to be put up on the app store? It’s obvious that the game is just a Flappy Bird copy. It’s also obvious that none of the other tags in the title relate to the game at all. This developer is simply using terrible Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to force it to the top of the list of any search.  But there it is, apparently since May 16 of this year.