Well, we finally got a message back from Apple yesterday (they always seem to send emails after 4PM) and yep, you guessed it, it’s a rejection email. Hi Jinx Pro v 1.2 was rejected a second time because of two sound bytes, “So Faded” and “Get Faded?”. This was the million dollar question we wanted to get answered from the previous rejection email. We finally now know that the Hi Jinx Pro v1.2 was rejected for two sound bytes (ones we did not even think were objectionable).  Thank you to the second App Reviewer for being specific in the rejection email (if I know your name or could inform your managers, I would write a kudos letter for you). Apple sent the following rejection email:

Dear JDMdesign,

Thank you for submitting Hi Jinx Pro to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Hi Jinx Pro and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains objectionable content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”  Please refer to the soundbytes, “So Faded” and “Get Faded?”, as examples of objectionable content.

If you believe that you can make the necessary changes so that Hi Jinx Pro does not violate the iPhone SDK Agreement we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.

Regards,
iPhone Developer Program

Now, if the first App Reviewer would have been specific enough in their first email, we would have been able to correct these issues and would not have wasted a week and a half waiting for another rejection email. Since the first email was not specific, I could only guess what was objectionable, and I guessed completely wrong. I never realized that “Faded” was a reference to drug use. I’ve always used the reference of getting faded as getting drunk or wasted from drinking too much, but after checking with Urban Dictionary, “Get Faded” is referred to as followed:

A phrase used to offer someone to smoke marijuana or to let other know that you are high.

Lets look at the clips; “So Faded” plays as “Titus got so faded Thursday night” and “Get Faded?” plays as “Want to get faded?”. These quotes don’t seem too obscene, but since they could be references to drug use, I can see why Apple would consider them objectionable. So, back to the drawing board again. I’ll see if I have some clips that I can replaced these two with, else I’ll just have to wait a week or two, when I will hopefully have Hi Jinx Pro v2.0.0 ready for release. The nice thing about version 2 is that the characters will be downloadable. We just have to complete coding and get the app approved through Apple, which, who knows if that will happen.

UPDATE: We resubmitted Hi Jinx Pro and Lite version 1.2 to the Apple App Store today (4/16/09). Let’s see how long it takes to get them approved or if we get another rejection letter. I’m working on version 2.0, which is about 75% completed and will resolve all these issues with characters needed to be approved.