Hi everyone, my name is Donovan,
I am sharing here the official response I received from Apple following my appeal with App Review Board (image attached).
For context, I am an independent developer and a student, working alone.
This application was originally created as a student project, with a very simple goal: to improve my skills in mobile application development and to understand the entire creation cycle, from the initial idea to a genuinely usable application.
What was meant to be an exercise gradually became a real product.
Over time, many people tested the project, used it, provided positive feedback, and encouraged me to take it all the way. That is why I decided to continue it, structure it properly, and finalize it with the level of seriousness expected from a public-facing application.
Today, the application is a dating and social connection app, entirely free, with no blocking paid features, funded only by light and optional advertising. It follows the rules, works correctly, and offers features that Apple itself acknowledged as useful and informative.
And yet, after review, the message is clear:
it is not the quality that is being questioned, but the category.
Because it is a dating app, a category considered saturated, two years of independent, self-funded work, carried out seriously and in compliance with the rules, can simply be dismissed.
What is being judged here is not the work itself.
It is the right to enter.
The “unique and very high-quality experience” being required appears to be a threshold reserved for those who are already established, visible, or funded. For a serious student project carried by a single developer, the door remains closed, cleanly, politely, definitively.
For those who still wish to see what the application looks like, I have attached a few images illustrating the interface and the main features. Unfortunately, this will likely be the only way to discover it on iOS.
Under these conditions, the conclusion is pragmatic.
Rather than continuing to defend the very existence of an honest and free project, it becomes more coherent to invest my energy where it is genuinely accepted.
On its side, Android validated the project without difficulty.
It still allows an independent developer to propose an idea, let it evolve, and bring it to completion without requiring prior success just to earn the right to try.
It is therefore very likely that these two years of development will never make it to the App Store.
Not out of frustration.
Out of clarity.
I am publishing this message not to provoke, but to inform other independent developers:
Apple is a remarkable platform, provided you are already established on it.
And this is a reality worth knowing before turning a student project into a life project.
Screenshots:
