Submission in "Waiting for Review" for 11 days — wait, or submit a newer build? (App ID 6807977612)

App Store Distribution & Marketing App Review
VM12 OP
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Hi,

Our submission has been in "Waiting for Review" for 11 days with no status change, and I would like advice on whether to keep waiting or to submit a newer build.

Details:

  • App: StarTarot: Your Day, Charted
  • Apple ID: 6807977612
  • Version / build: 1.2.6 (39)
  • Submission ID: 24f9028e-038f-4d18-9eaf-9a3ca0ccdd70
  • Submitted: 9 September 2026. It has never moved to "In Review".
  • I also contacted App Review Status through the Contact Us form on 18 September 2026 (Case ID 102967722276) and have not received a reply yet.

Background, in case it matters: an earlier submission of this app was rejected under Guideline 4.3(b) as duplicating widely available astrology apps. We did not resubmit the same thing. We reworked how the app presents itself and submitted a new build, because the part that makes it different was not visible from the product page.

The app is built around "Today", a daily practice that works as a loop rather than a one-off reading: a digest computed for that specific date from the user's own birth chart (Swiss Ephemeris, NASA/JPL DE440); on some days one small concrete action chosen to fit the day, including the weather and daylight where the user lives; an evening check-in, after which the app asks whether that action happened and adapts what it suggests next; a memory of short facts that the user can review and erase, used only with explicit consent; and an astrologer the user can talk to about timing, a decision or another person. Elsewhere in the app there is astrocartography drawn on a world map, a Human Design bodygraph, recognition of a physical tarot deck photographed with the camera, and eclipse and planet visibility computed for the user's own coordinates. Our 78-card text corpus is published openly under CC BY with a DOI.

My questions:

  1. Is 11 days without moving to "In Review" expected at the moment, or does it suggest this submission needs attention?

  2. We have a further updated build ready (an interactive calendar among other changes). Should we wait for the current submission to be reviewed, or replace the build? We would rather not resubmit repeatedly, since that is discouraged.

Thank you.

Replies  3
Boosts 1
Views  239
Participants  3
olymit OP

ID: 6822143379

same basically, they asked for changes so we did. Now I'm stuck there since the 16th... it's frustrating because I have a deadline.
FelixDaemmrich OP

Good Luck! Im waiting september for over three weeks for only one build. Now waiting since 15 october, no answer from apple after several support tickets.

App ID: 6747684577
VM12 OP

An update, since this is where I asked for advice.

The submission was finally reviewed on October 21, after a month in the queue, and rejected again under 4.3(b) with the same words as before: "The issues we previously identified still need your attention." Our server logs show that the reviewer signed in to the demo account, the first screen loaded, and the rejection arrived about three minutes later. The calendar, the journal and the conversation with the astrologer, the parts we had rebuilt the app around, were never opened.

I want to describe how this feels from the developer's side, because I doubt I am the only one.

Over two months we:

  • answered the 2.1 information request with a screen recording made on a physical iPhone;
  • after the first 4.3(b) rejection, rewrote the name, subtitle, description, keywords and screenshots;
  • rebuilt the iOS app itself: it now opens on a personal day planner, a calendar replaced the horoscope tab, and the readings section was removed;
  • prepared a demo account with real data and put a two-minute path at the top of the review notes;
  • asked in every reply which specific part looks duplicated, so that we could change the right thing.

Every answer was the same template. Not once did we receive a sentence that referred to something actually in the app.

The same happened with our second app, Fool's Journey, a single-player deck-building card game. It has no readings, no predictions, no horoscopes, no account and no network access; the tarot deck is simply the set of playing cards. It was rejected under the same 4.3(b) text, as an app that "primarily features astrology, horoscopes, palm reading, fortune telling or zodiac reports". We removed every word that could sound like divination, attached a gameplay video and asked which screen was the problem. The reply was the same paragraph again.

I understand that App Review is under real pressure. With AI tools the number of submissions has grown enormously, and many of them probably deserve a short answer. But when you have spent ten months building something, it is hard not to be discouraged by a process in which, once a category label is attached, nothing you change seems to be looked at.

Both apps are now with the App Review Board. I am not asking for an exception. I would be grateful for a real answer: either what specifically needs to change, or a plain statement that apps built on astrology, or games that use a tarot deck, are no longer accepted from new developers. Either answer would let us decide what to do next instead of resubmitting in the dark.

Thank you to everyone who replied here, and I hope your submissions move soon.