My app is a social networking app and it cannot be functional without a user account. I gave the user the options to login with Facebook or twitter. Apple rejected the app and here is what they said:
We noticed that your app uses Facebook and Twitter logins for authentication purposes but does not include account-based features offered by that site. In order to use Facebook and Twitter for authentication, your app must include significant account-specific functionality from Facebook and Twitter.
Next Steps
Please revise your app to implement your own authentication mechanism, or incorporate significant account-specific functionality from Facebook and Twitter.
What do they mean by:
include significant account-specific functionality from Facebook and Twitter.
The only FB/TW piece I have in my app is to allow uses to invite others, but the rest of functionality doesn't have anything to do with Facebook or Twitter. I'm not gathering users data from FB/TW or need to know who their circle is or anything like that. My app is independent from all of that (the app has a backend server and DB), except for one piece to send invites to others. Does Apple want me to include more Facebook/Twitter features, my app is a different social network than Facebook or Twitter. I find that request to be very strange. If I still have to abide by that, what are those "significant account-specific functionality", what would they like to see? I already have a screen in my app to allow users to send invites to other prospect users, is that not significant enough? What else would they like to see? I've looked at Tinder and it doesn't allow users to go anywhere or do anything except if they login to FB first, why is that OK!?
I've seen these SO questions iOS application using Facebook -- rejected, What is significant account-specific functionality from Facebook but don't have marked answers
Next Steps
Please revise your app to implement your own authentication mechanism, or incorporate significant account-specific functionality from Facebook and Twitter.
What do they mean by:
include significant account-specific functionality from Facebook and Twitter.
What should I do?
I got a clarification from apple. Apple representative called me and this is what she said:
Significant account-specific functionality from Facebook is not getting a user name or a profile image from the user profile, apple wants you to use more account specific information like common interests and friend lists. or you can use Facebook and twitter login without account-specific functionality if you add your own login and password.
In may case I have no use of the user interests or friend list in my app so I decided to add to the login page my own login and password as will as the Facebook and twitter login.
The issue is that you're authorising the user through Facebook/Twitter but you're not actually using any of the information that you're gathering, in these circumstances Apple will reject your app.
To fix this, you need to use the information that is collected from authorising with these platforms. Use the information from them to auto-complete your login form e.g first name, last name, DOB, profile picture etc. That way you're actually using the information that you get from Facebook/Twitter and you can justify authenticating the user with these platforms.