2020-03-14:  I posted something similar on my newly created subreddit (/r/nzbUnity) —

TLDR: Apple has effectively banned nzbUnity from the AppStore and said that the app will never be allowed on the AppStore AND this does not deter me from continuing development.

As many of you know, I created a new account and submitted nzbUnity to the AppStore after seeing that other applications have made it up there as well.

The first denial — nzbUnity is a trademarked name and cannot be used.  I changed the name to nzbUnity for iOS.  The App was denied because it contains the word ‘for iOS’ (You can search for “NZB for iOS” and there is an app with that name yet I cannot have ‘for iOS’.  I removed ‘for iOS’ and renamed it to nzbUnity2 — this was accepted but the app was then rejected because I had mentions of the word “PRO Features” in the app and allowed donations to be made outside of the AppStore.  I removed all PRO features mentioning and donations and resubmitted.  I wont keep listing ALL the execuses they listed but the final rejection was that the app was similar to an app on the AppStore.

I filed an appeal because I thought it was to one of the two other applications that are on the appstore and my case was — “Applications are meant to be similar if they are in the same genre.  It is like denying the Facebook app because MySpace had an app there first”.  Well, to my surprise that is not the app they are talking about.  The other “app” in question was my FIRST submission for approval of nzbUnity back in 2014 which was denied and never made it to the AppStore.  Because I submitted nzbUnity using my (now) terminated account, they are saying that any apps on the AppStore from a terminated account can NEVER be on the AppStore again.

Yes — Any app on the AppStore from a terminated account can never be on the AppStore again.. Well, I filed another appeal because nzbUnity was NEVER in the AppStore before and since I was told of this over the phone, I explained that my original developer account was terminated for ‘fraud’ but I was never told what the fraud was and was told that all decisions are final with no chance of appeal.

Let’s be clear about one thing — I’ve never commited fraud with my developer account.  Since 2013, I’ve used my developer account to develop nzbUnity, install it on my devices to test, and extended the ability to have users who could not jailbreak or sideload my application, to get it straight from me via my developer account (originally it was HockeyTeam which Apple I believe bought and brought them into their ‘TestFlight’).  That has been the extent of my developer account so to get an email that my account was terminated and I cannot know what the cause (developer key used to do something, an app that was created with my developer account, if i was reported) was or fight it was absurd.  I figured that it was a 1 year ban and I would get my account back in a year — I was wrong, it is a lifetime ban.  I was told of an email address to email and try to appeal the ban which i’ve done and the waiting game begins.

Given the many many many reasons that Apple gave originally to deny the app and given that they have hundreds of thousands of developer on the AppStore, I am not hopeful that I will 1- get my original developer account back and 2- that nzbUnity will be allowed on the AppStore.

This will not stop me from developing nzbUnity.  I am still very much active in developing nzbUnity (I am adding the Ombi integration as we speak — I’ll create a new menu item for Screenshots and post some of the screenshots there).

Thank you for reading.

Juan Mejia (nzbUnity for iOS)