[hombre_fatal]

Finally a great breakdown of the issue and a fair look into what both sides, namely Apple, are trying to do here.

> That, Apple said, is not what Hey is. Hey is a consumer app, paid for by users. And Apple takes issue with the idea that when one of those prospective users downloads the app, there's nothing they can do with it — they can't sign up, they can't pay, they have to go somewhere else before they can use the app. Apple doesn't like apps like that, at least when it feels they should be more accessible to their intended audience.

[saysjonathan]

The Hey onboarding today is tied to a website-driven invite and signup process. While that _could_ be a bad customer experience through some lens, what percentage of users following this flow are or will be downloading this app prior to signing up?

In a larger sense, Apple seems to be saying that, at least for consumer apps, they have an expected user flow from launch/beta through purchase. That flow makes Apple the primary channel and pipeline. If you have a multi-channel app (web + app, in this case), they want the main experience through the app regardless of business model or context. This makes the customer experience argument seem like misdirection.

[IncRnd]

If someone were to look at the reviews on the App Store, they would realize that users are extremely happy with the Hey app, despite how Apple attempts to portray the situation.