Eighteen days ago, we submitted the Avego app to the iPhone app store.
We’re hoping and expecting that any day now the app will go live… To be fair, Apple has been fairly diligent in making sure that the application meets their style guidelines, etc. A bit to my surprise, they rejected the application twice due to usability issues, which is in fact a level of quality assurance we didn’t expect that Apple would have, considering that they have 10,000 applications that have already been approved for distribution at the app store. It’s impressive, good for the user, and good for Apple.
For example, the Avego driver needs to be connected to the internet, at least part of the time, in order to function properly. Other iPhone applications may not require this (imagine a video game, for example), but Avego does. Why? If you are driving your car, offering seats to others, we need to be able to connect to the Avego marketplace to find riders and let them know about our available seats.
Apple actually tested the software and determined that one part of our code didn’t work properly (give an error message) when the iPhone was locked into a room that had no cellphone access or wireless internet access. Pretty smart of them to test that.
So, we fixed that bug and returned it to Apple the same day for them to continue the evaluation.
We hope they finish soon! Especially because we understand that within a few days the New York Times will be running a story on Avego, and OH BOY do we want the application shipping by this Sunday, 21st December!
At any rate, soon enough we hope the application will be available to the consumer.
Go with the flow! Go Avego!
Best,
Sean