The developer had a meeting with Apple representatives where they assured him that tipping profiles would be okay so he adjusted his app so people would tip profiles instead of posts. Then they still rejected the app.
Sure but reading the guidelines that Apple representative was clearly mistaken. Unless they said "we acknowledge what the guidelines say but they are incorrect", it just seems like poor developer relations comms (from Apple, never!).
I can't find the bit from the dev you're referring to so don't know if they have screenshots of it in writing or something, however, what I suspect is more likely (based on my experience talking to Apple reps about similar things) is that they gave a very charitable description of their feature, and the rep gave a non-committal "sounds like it could pass, try submitting it".
I don't get why the developer is so convinced that their tip system for tipping people based on their activity on their app is not tipping for "digital content". Unless you can only tip randomly with no control over who it goes to, or tipping is for the user's activity off-app, digital content (i.e. posts etc) are literally the only thing you could be tipping for.
The Apple representative may have been mistaken, but they did represent Apple and as such have very clearly overruled the guidelines. It should have ended there.
The degree to which people will twist themselves into pretzels to defend mega-corps is something I find hard to understand, for this guy it is their life line and for Apple it is a non-issue. Apple doesn't get to hide behind their own guidelines if even their own representatives don't know them well enough to adequately represent the company.
It's unfortunate confusion, but a mistake from an employee is not a policy commitment. If Tim Cook said it, sure, but a low-level "representative" is just someone doing a job.
The company can delegate people to interact with the outside world and those people have the ability to bind the company. If they mess up beyond their pay grade then the company may have recourse on them but the company may well still be bound externally.
You still have to check if the functionary is an 'authorized agent' but if they misrepresent themselves as such then the company may well have a problem if you had no reason to believe otherwise (for instance: because of their job title or because someone with signing authority delegated the interaction with you). Such 'apparent authority' (of which this may well be a case) is the source of much confusion and many lawsuits.
This is why, until I see a transcript of the conversation, I'm extremely inclined to believe this is the developer giving the best possible interpretation for their cause. I've spoken to Apple people and they are good at all this stuff in my experience, they know what they can say and what they can't, they're careful, and they're non-committal. Marketing people encouraging us to get our app on the store were still deferential to App Store Review and always reminded us they had the final say, and wouldn't be pinned down to any specifics.
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