- Apple App Review has blocked Inkwell for iOS since April 21st, cycling through rejections, appeals, and a phone call with no resolution.
- The most stubborn Apple App Review objection involves a trademark Apple itself hasn’t used since Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar in 2002.
- Developer Manton Reece stripped core features from Inkwell and removed it from most storefronts just to satisfy App Store guidelines.
- The standoff exposes how Apple’s control over iOS distribution can reach well beyond what trademark law actually requires.
One App, Nearly a Month of Rejections
Apple App Review has had Manton Reece’s Inkwell for iOS stuck in limbo since April 21st — and what started as a routine submission has turned into a case study in everything frustrating about getting an app onto iPhone. Multiple rejections, code rewrites, resubmissions, clarifications, a phone call with an Apple reviewer, and now a formal appeal to the App Review Board that’s still pending. Reece, the developer behind the Micro.blog platform, laid it all out publicly this week, and the picture isn’t flattering for Apple.
The details matter here, because this isn’t one developer having a bad day. It’s a documented sequence of objections that, taken together, show how Apple App Review can grind a legitimate app into the ground — and how the power imbalance between Apple and independent developers remains as stark as ever.
The Full List of Rejections
Reece organised his account by App Store guideline number, which is a useful way to see just how many separate fronts he’s been fighting on simultaneously.
Guideline 1.2 flagged the absence of tools to report or block users. Inkwell is primarily an RSS reader — users choose what they follow — but because it surfaces replies from Micro.blog users, Apple wanted moderation controls. Reece added report and block menu items, and also cluttered the welcome screen with additional terms of service and privacy policy links Apple demanded.
Guideline 2.1(a) said Sign in with Apple wasn’t working correctly for Apple’s own testers. Reece fixed the underlying issue and ultimately hid the button entirely when signing in from Inkwell or from companion apps like Unread that can sync with it.
Guideline 2.1(b) was essentially a business model interrogation — a list of questions from Apple about how Micro.blog makes money. Reece answered all of them.
Guideline 3.1 is where things get genuinely punishing. Apple App Review flagged that Inkwell doesn’t route revenue through in-app purchase, which would hand Apple its standard cut of Micro.blog subscriptions. Reece’s response was to surgically remove significant chunks of the app: posting features, highlighting, sign-up flows, external links. He also pulled Inkwell from every App Store region except the US, where the Epic v. Apple ruling creates slightly different rules around external payment links. He believes the stripped-back version qualifies as either a “reader app” under guideline 3.1.3(a) or a “stand-alone companion app” under 3.1.3(f) — two carve-outs Apple created under regulatory and legal pressure.
Guideline 4 flagged a design issue: Sign in with Apple was enabled but still prompted users for their name. Reece fixed it, and ultimately disabled Sign in with Apple in the app entirely.
Guideline 5.1.1(v) required a way to delete a Micro.blog account from within the app. Since Inkwell is a companion app and most users will have existing accounts managed on the web, Reece still added a delete button to the settings screen anyway.
All of those issues? Addressable, even if some required painful feature cuts. Then there’s guideline 5.2.5.
Apple App Review’s Most Bizarre Block: A 2002 Trademark Nobody Uses
Apple App Review flagged the app’s name — Inkwell — citing Apple’s own trademark page. This one has proven impossible to shake, and it’s the issue Reece has now escalated to the App Review Board.
Here’s the history: Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, released in 2002, included a handwriting-recognition feature called Inkwell, based on technology that originated in the Apple Newton. Apple trademarked the name that year. The feature was short-lived, the branding faded, and the US Patent and Trademark Office now lists the trademark as dead. It hasn’t been actively used in decades.
None of that stopped a reviewer from surfacing it as a blocking issue. Reece writes that the Apple employee he spoke to on the phone had never even heard of Inkwell — the Mac feature, not the app. The trademark was found not through institutional knowledge but apparently through a search of Apple’s trademark page, where dead trademarks still appear listed.
Reece tried renaming the app to de-emphasise the word Inkwell. It didn’t help. Meanwhile, other apps with variations of the name “Inkwell” have been approved without incident, and the Android version of Inkwell was approved by Google last month without any trademark objection. The inconsistency is hard to miss — and it raises real questions about how consistently Apple App Review applies its own standards across submissions.
“Inkwell is such a common word,
Source: https://www.manton.org/2026/05/19/why-is-inkwell-stuck-in.html
