Comment by lapcat
3 days ago
From https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/apples-tigh...
> In a sworn deposition in the Epic lawsuit, Phillip Shoemaker, the former head of the App Review team, said employees in his department generally did not have a technical background in computer coding. They needed to know how to use a Mac and an iPhone, he said.
> “Qualifications were that they could breathe, they could think,” he said. And they typically worked at the Apple “Genius Bar” at the company’s retail stores. It typically took about 13 minutes to review a new app, Shoemaker said in the deposition.
They're likely just ticking boxes on a checklist - does the app crash, does the app have a privacy policy, does the app permit chat?
Nothing about level one app review should need coding skills. Appeals, maybe, but even there, it's almost never about the code.
This isn't really a bad thing. That's exactly what you want from an app reviewer. You want someone who has critical thinking skills but is looking at the app from the perspective of a typical customer.
Anything involving technical code review of apps on Apple's scale should be automated anyway.
> has critical thinking skills
That's not what the court testimony said. Could think does not imply could think critically, especially not when preceded by "could breathe", which is an absurdly low bar. Might as well say, "not literally dead".
You just chopped off the other part of the sentence to change the meaning.
> “Qualifications were that they could breathe, they could think,” he said.
“They could think” implies critical thinking skills.
Then the next sentence says they usually work at the Genius Bar, which is not at all an entry level role.
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