Dear FlickType friends,

We have had numerous rejections of FlickType by Apple over the last few months, most often due to the uncommon nature of our app being a keyboard for VoiceOver users. Usually the reviewer is confused by the way they need to operate the keyboard with VoiceOver, and it takes some back-and-forth before they eventually reverse their decision and let us release our updates to the App Store.

This past weekend, our update got rejected because, quote, "the app uses auto-renewing subscriptions, but it is not an appropriate use of the service". This has happened before, and after our detailed explanation and position they agreed to reverse their decision at the time. It would seem that they have now either changed their policy, or this is a different person reviewing the app and for some reason they don't have the context of our earlier conversations. This is likely to happen again in the future, even if we succeed in getting the current update through.

Either way, App Store rejections and appeals to the App Review Board take a long time to resolve, time that we can better spend developing the app itself. We have therefore decided to drop the subscription model moving forward, and instead introduce a one-off purchasing fee for the system-wide keyboard, so that we at least eliminate one of the potential causes of App Store rejections and delays in the future.

We have not yet decided on the pricing, and in fact we'd love to hear some of your ideas on that. We are still hoping that we can find a price that is both reasonable for users, and also sustainable for us as a business. We also wanted to share this background information with you, and for you to be aware of the upcoming pricing changes.

Again, we welcome your thoughts in the matter, and we are thankful for all your support so far.

Warmly,
Kosta