The recent legal battle between Apple and Epic Games has unearthed a bunch of information about how each of the companies operate behind-the-scenes. From Epic trying to get PlayStation exclusives on the Epic Games Store to Microsoft switching to an 88/12 revenue share for games sold on Xbox, the lawsuit is shining a light on how the games industry operates. The most recent revelation from this courtroom drama has shown that Apple hired 500 employees to be in charge of manually checking every App Store submission. This is a surprising fact about the company considering Apple is often depicted as moving away from the human element.
As the almost year-long trial between Apple and Epic Games winds down, Apple’s 325-page legal position has now been made public, and you can read a great summarization of Apple’s position over on PCGamer. Within this lengthy document, readers are given a peek into how Apple operates behind-the-scenes, including the news that there are over 27 million registered iOS developers that have signed up to adhere to the App Store’s developer’s agreement. To put that into perspective, that means that a little over 0.3 percent of the world’s population are iOS developers.
Along with that news, the document reveals that Apple utilizes a thorough review system when it comes to reviewing the apps that make it onto the App Store. This review system includes about 500 employees across the globe that are used to manually review the apps. Of course, the apps are first sent through a machine that reviews the apps using an algorithm before being sent to the human reviewers.
This method of review has led Apple to create one of the safest app platforms for users as the reviewing process leads to the rejection of apps that contain software glitches and bugs that could potentially harm user software or lead to a compromise in user data privacy and security. Last year alone, Apple rejected more than 150,000 app submissions that violated this review process.
Of course, it is surprising to see Apple rely on a human element in its internal processes as the company is often synonymous with a future that leans towards artificial intelligence or a heavy reliance on computers. Knowing that humans are still required, for now, is somewhat comforting.