Apple has close to 500 employees that manually review apps

Now that the hearing is over for the Epic vs Apple case, a document containing the core of Apple’s arguments (thanks, PC Gamer) has been made publicly available. In the document there’s a lot of information about the company, and it notably mentions that “Apple therefore uses—indeed, pioneered—robust manual review in the app review process, involving close to 500 Apple employees deployed across the globe.”

The document also states that human reviewers can more effectively identify “new or previously unknown types of user-unfriendly behaviour” than automated systems. An example listed is that a human can better determine if requested entitlements are malicious or have a negative ulterior motive.

Earlier in the document it is stated that when the iOS app store debuted in 2008, it only had 500 apps. Apple goes on to say its “decision to open its iOS platform to third-party developers has resulted in massive procompetitive benefits.”

Around 40 per cent of manual app reviews are rejected, with most of these due to bugs or software glitches. In fact, the company rejected over 150,000 submissions in 2020 because they violated the company’s privacy guidelines.

Due to the public interest in the Epic vs Apple case, a webpage was created by the United States District Court Northern District of California to provide case information and documents, it says that Epic Games brought action against Apple and alleged “violations of antitrust laws through its Apple App Store policies on iOS devices.”

“Apple counterclaims that Epic Games has breached its developer agreements and App Store guidelines by introducing a direct pay option on iOS devices in Epic Games’ videogame Fortnite,” the page adds.

In other news, a new free event for Hitman 3 is ruining Dartmoor Garden Show with murders and poisonous frogs.