Open Radar

 
Summary:
It would be fantastic if there was an explicit UIBackgroundModes key to indicate that applications support playing video in the background. Ideally, this would be nothing more than an alias for the existing "audio" key.

My reasoning for requesting this is because there is a big of a gap between how things technically work, and how the App Store reviewers interpret things to be. Specifically, Technical QA 1668 says the following:

"Important: The UIBackgroundModes audio key will allow apps to stream audio or video content in the background using AirPlay."

However, an application that I work on (TwitchTV, App ID: 460177396) has been rejected multiple times for claiming to support audio in the background, but not playing audio (because we are a video app). The App Store Reviewers say something along the lines of the following (from our most recent rejection):

"We noticed your app declares support for audio in the UIBackgroundModes key in your Info.plist, but did not include features that require persistent audio."

I'm sure you can understand how frustrating it is to have an app that I have spent a lot of time on be rejected for something like this.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Write a video playing app
2. Submit it to the App Store

Expected Results:
1. To have my app accepted and processed for the App Store, because I am not doing anything like using private APIs, and my app has a lot of unique functionality (it is a native app for the website of the company that I work for).

Actual Results:
1. My app is rejected.

Regression:
- My app has gone through the app store submission process without problems before.
- My app has had this exact rejection reason and successfully appealed it before.

Notes:
- While this is a political problem for sure, there is no Radar for App Store policy. So, I'm asking for video support in the background to be made more explicit at the API level, to avoid having this problem ever again. Thank you.