Many have wondered how the approval process for the App Store actually works. Is it one person, or is a team of people who may not share the same standards for what should be in or out of the Store?

Turns out, there’s some evidence for the latter of those two. Several sites have quoted from a very reliable source – someone who has successful apps in the App Store and has been through the process – to offer a possible answer:
“According to a “two-managerial layers up from the demo floor” Apple AppStore representative I spoke with at WWDC, Apple has an entire team of application reviewers. Each one make their accept/reject decision based in part on their subjective opinion of what is appropriate. I asked if they have any sort of guidelines they use which they could provide to developers – a list of dirty words, forbidden topics, etc. – to which the representative replied that no, each reviewer makes their own decision about what gets approved. As a result, they couldn’t even guess at what would or wouldn’t get through the store.”

If that’s accurate, it explains a lot. I’m sure the whole approvals process is a bit of a beast for Apple – who are likely swamped by a greater volume of new apps coming through and wanting entry into the App Store than they or anyone else imagined. But on the other hand, it’s been a long while now that the App Store has been open, and you would think they would have a concrete process in place by now.

Further, you would think there would be some sort of system in place to ensure consistent standards are applied during this process as well. Hopefully, this gets sharpened up over time.