Ask HN: Apple won't let me sign up for the developer program. What do I do?
6•Jean-Philipe•4d ago
Dear *, I am a software developer who has written some iOS and Android apps for other clients in the past. Now I wanted to sign up for the Apple developer program, but the verification of my German ID card failed every time. The error message says to contact support. I've spoken to support a few times, but they don't know what the problem is and can't help me. They only see that I'm somehow "blocked" - but no reason why. What do I do from here?
Comments
brudgers•4d ago
who has written some iOS and Android apps for other clients in the past
Here on HN, I have seen people say they had been "universally banned" from app stores due to the nature of previous work for clients. Basically, the behavior of those clients was linked to them either directly because their name was on the developer account or indirectly in some other way.
I don't know if or how any of that was fixed.
And I am not saying that's what happened here. Just saying that I've seen posts where people had similar issues that seem to trace back to previous work that the landlords apparently deemed problematic. Good luck.
Jean-Philipe•1d ago
Yeah I was also considering that...but the most recent iOS app that I worked on was actually featured by Apple a few times, so it seemed they really liked it.
I ended up creating a new account, and got verified there, but only after a few tries and calls to support. Turns out that their AI couldn't read my European (German) ID card and some human actual had to look at it and verify me manually.
brudgers•4d ago
Here on HN, I have seen people say they had been "universally banned" from app stores due to the nature of previous work for clients. Basically, the behavior of those clients was linked to them either directly because their name was on the developer account or indirectly in some other way.
I don't know if or how any of that was fixed.
And I am not saying that's what happened here. Just saying that I've seen posts where people had similar issues that seem to trace back to previous work that the landlords apparently deemed problematic. Good luck.
Jean-Philipe•1d ago
I ended up creating a new account, and got verified there, but only after a few tries and calls to support. Turns out that their AI couldn't read my European (German) ID card and some human actual had to look at it and verify me manually.