Craig Hockenberry has suggested a new app state other than “Ready for Sale.” If you have a minor violation of the App Store Review Guidelines, your app goes into a “Must Fix” state, but it’s still available in the App Store.

I like this idea.

I think it is a little open-ended in its current state, however. How soon should a developer fix the problem? What’s the timeframe?

My suggestion is that as an added “push” to devs, there could be an expiration date of two or three weeks at which point the app will be removed from sale if a new binary hasn’t been submitted. That gives developers time to fix problems and re-submit; it also keeps them accountable for doing it in a timely manner. As an added bonus, it gives everyone a clearly defined timeline and removes some ambiguity from the previously suggested process.

Now, would Apple do something like this? Probably not. That would mean at any given time, the App Store would contain apps that technically “failed” their review. To me, it doesn’t seem like that would be acceptable to Apple. But who knows? Maybe some day?