App Gallery Reviews update

[JonFitbit]

I wanted to give you an update regarding the delays in the app gallery review process that have been caused by a small number of developers submitting a high volume of clocks.

I have worked with the platform team and the App Gallery Review team to formulate a number of specific changes which will dis-incentivize people from flooding the review queue, and effectively reduce the wait times for each developer.

The summary of changes are as follows:

1. The `Recently Viewed` clocks category will now only display 1 clock per developer from the past 7 days. Developers will not be able to batch publish 20 clocks flooding this category.
2. The App Gallery review queue will change so that the oldest clock/app from each developer will be prioritized first. So ideally each developer should only wait a short period for a single review. If a single developer submits 100 clocks, other developers will not need to wait for 99 other reviews before theirs are processed. This means that review time is evenly distributed across all developers.
3. We have also optimized the steps within the review process itself, so we should be able to perform each review faster.

These changes and potentially others will be rolling out in the coming weeks, thanks for your patience during this busy period.

[Grispa]

Hey! I have around 20 clock faces that I started to publish in March/April (1 clock face each day) and they are still pending. With whom should I talk about this? I am not sure if there's a problem with them or there's a big delay in reviewing apps/faces?

[musmanc]

I have only two pending since 26th April, and so far there's no reprieve, all they're doing is asking to wait.

It seems like after Google deal fitbit doesn't really care about what happens to community and they're simply waiting for their exit once the deal passes the scruitny, they'll decie about direction. Disappointing.

[jeremiahlee]

I submitted an update to Pride Flags on 2020-05-31 and it still has not been reviewed. LGBTQ Pride Month is halfway over. I updated the artwork for the watchface at the same time as I submitted the review. 5 people have written me asking why the artwork doesn't match the current release. As a future GAM feature, it would be great to be able to associate artwork with a specific release so they get updated at the same time. It's a new problem created by the long review time.

[LifeOmic-Dev]

While the original post and several replies seem to focus on clocks, has this also affected apps?  I submitted an app on May 27 and it is still in review (I'd love an update, if possible).

Given the number of discussions on the SDK board around these delays, better visibility into these delays and where we stand could ease worries.  I'm also thankful that I have not had to put out a bugfix, but I can imagine other devs with apps in review blocked from updating their release for nearly a month due to the review delays.

[Gondwana]

I think apps were affected just as much as clockfaces; I'm pretty sure it's the same queue.

The queue has just started moving again, but there aren't any estimates of how quickly it will be cleared.

[JonFitbit]

The review queue has begun moving again. Thanks for your patience at this time.