Apple’s Explanation IV:
Extract from Apple’s reply to BlueMail’s Open letter to Tim Cook – December 10, 2019:
“… resubmits the BlueMail app in a format compatible with the latest version of MacOS Catalina, the BlueMail app can be approved—assuming it complies with all other App Store Review Guidelines.”
Response IV:
Apple claimed it could not run BlueMail on the Catalina version of MacOS, and that it did not have any way to run Mojave or other operating systems. This is hard to believe – and it is also irrelevant. Apple kicked BlueMail out of the Mac App Store before Catalina was even released. Catalina compatibility had nothing to do with the removal. In any event, BlueMail does run on Catalina, as we have shown Apple and no notarization is required if distributed through the Mac App Store as Apple has now admitted. Even if BlueMail did not run on Catalina, many applications on the Mac App Store do not run on Catalina – including apps submitted when we submitted BlueMail, which were approved by Apple with no problem.
More Details:
Until June 7, 2019, the day Apple kicked BlueMail out of the store, BlueMail was live on the Mac App Store. macOS Catalina was released on Oct 7, 2019.
We talked to a senior manager within Apple’s App Review team, asking that they should try to run BlueMail on macOS Mojave, the latest version of macOS that was available when the BlueMail was submitted, however they refused to do so claiming they cannot locate a Mojave machine within Apple.
Furthermore, BlueMail runs on macOS Catalina in our lab and outside of it.