Founded by former Apple engineers, a new app called Struck wants to be the Tinder for the Co-Star crowd. In other words, he's an astrology-based matchmaker. But it took nearly 10 attempts over several months for the startup to get its app approved by Apple for inclusion in the App Store. In almost all of the refusals, the app reviewers flagged the app as "spam" either because of its use of astrology or, once, just because it was designed for online dating.
Apple consistently cited section 4.3 of its App Store review guidelines in the majority of Struck's rejections, except for two that were unrelated to the purpose of the app. (It was once rejected due to using a faulty API. Another rejection was for text that needed correction. It was still called "beta.")
Guideline 4.3 is something Apple uses to keep the App Store free from what it considers clutter and spam. In the spirit, the directive makes sense, as it allows Apple to make more subjective calls on low-quality apps.
Today, the directive states that developers must "avoid piling into an already saturated category" and reminds developers that the App Store has "enough applications for fart, burp, flashlight, clairvoyance, encounters and Kama Sutra, etc. . "
In the document, Apple promises to reject anything that "does not provide a high quality experience."
This guideline was also updated in March to further raise the bar for dating apps and create stricter rules around "fortune telling" apps, among others.
Hit, unfortunately, found itself in the crosshairs of this new application. But while its app can use astrology in a matchmaking process, its overall design and business model is nowhere near that of a wacky "fortune telling" app.
In fact, Struck hasn't even implemented their monetization model, which may involve pay-per-view subscriptions and features at a later date.
On the contrary, Struck has been carefully and thoughtfully designed to provide an alternative to market leaders like Tinder. Built by a team of mostly women, including two people of color and a member of the LGBTQ + team, the app is everything mainstream dating apps are not.
For example, Struck doesn't turn online dating into a Hot-or-Not-style game. It works by recommending matches first based on its understanding of graphs and detailed aspects of users' birth numbers. But you don't have to be a true believer in astrology to benefit from the experience. You can use the app just for fun if you are open-minded, the company's website says. "Skeptics are welcome," the website announces.
And while Tinder and others tend to take advantage of psychological tricks to make their apps more addictive, Struck aims to slow things down so that users can focus on romance and conversations again. There are no endless catalogs of whim to browse in Struck. Instead, it doesn't send you more than four matches per day, and you can only send one of the four.
The overall goal of the app is to give users time to analyze the priorities and values of their matches, and not just how they look in photos.
If anything, this is precisely the type of unique, carefully crafted app that the App Store should cater for, not the type it should ban.
"We come from an Apple background. We come from a technological background. We insisted on having a good user interface and user experience, "explains Rachel Lo, co-founder and CEO of Struck. "It was a priority for us during our beta testing. Honestly, we didn't expect any pushback when we submitted to the App Store, "she says.
But Apple fought back. After submitting the app for the first time in May, Struck went through about nine rounds of denial where critics continued to claim it was spam simply because it was a dating app. based on astrology. The team would then withdraw the astrology features in the hopes of gaining approval for the app... without success. Finally, a reviewer told them that Struck was being rejected for being a dating app.
"I remember thinking, we're going to have to stop this project. There is no real solution, "says Lo. Struck's team, as a last resort, posted on their Instagram page about their struggles and how they felt Apple's rejections were unfair given the quality of the app. Plus, as Lo points out, the rejection was associated with a tinge of sexism.
"Obviously, astrology is a category that is heavily dominated by women," she says. "I challenged the directive that says 'burps, farts and fortune telling'. I have made stories about this verbiage and how offensive it is to people in most countries of the world who actually observe astrology.
Despite the founders' ties to the tech industry, thanks to their former Apple status and their connections with journalists who would continue to argue their case, Struck was not approved.
Finally, after several supporters left comments on Lisa Jackson's Instagram where she had posted on the WWDC, the app was suddenly given the green light for reasons unknown. It's unclear whether Instagram posts made a difference. Even the app reviewer couldn't explain why the app was now approved, when asked.
The whole debacle has soured the founders about how Apple now runs its App Store and sees them supporting government antitrust investigations into Apple's business, which could lead to new regulations.
"We had no course of action. And it seemed really, really wrong for this giant company to crush small developers, Lo says. "I don't know what will become of our app - we hope it succeeds and we hope we can build a good, diverse business out of it," she continues. "But the point was, we didn't even have the opportunity to distribute our app that we spent nine months building."
Although Apple doesn't care about astrology apps, apparently you don't have to take astrology to heart to have fun with apps like Struck or the ones that inspired him, like Co-Star. These new Zodiac apps aren't as obsessed with predicting your future as they are with providing a framework to examine your emotions, your place in the world, and your interpersonal relationships. This led to Co-Star winning a $ 5 million round of funding in 2019, one of many astrology apps investors searched for last year, as consumer spending among the top 10 this year. space jumped 65% compared to 2018.
Struck, at the end of the day, wants to give the market something different from Tinder, and that has value.
"We want to challenge straight men, because it's - without a quote - a traditionally female app," Lo says. "For us it's 2020. It's shocking to us that every dating app looks like a slot machine. We want to create something that has a voice and that puts women at ease. And I think our gender sharing of users kind of proved it. "
Struck is live on the App Store today - well, for who knows how long.
It is initially aimed at users in the Bay Area and Los Angeles and will arrive in New York on Friday. Based on user feedback, it will slowly roll out into more markets where it sees demand.
