title: Does "invitation only" imply beta?
body: <p>I released an iPhone app in the App store and just heard it had been rejected. In their communication, Apple explains it was not accepted because, as the iOS guidelines stipulate, "2.9: Apps that are “beta”, “demo”, “trial”, or “test” versions will be rejected"</p>
  
  <p>In their message, they pointed a screenshot of my app referring to my "login or request an invite" screen... which they didn't like.</p>
  
  <p>It's important for me to keep the application by invitation only because there is a social aspect to it, and our early usability testing showed that people who had some connections in the app were much more likely to use it than people using the app by themselves. Without a network, people just don't use the application as much (it would be like using Facebook by yourself...).</p>
  
  <p>After <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle#Beta" rel="nofollow">checking wikipedia</a>, I don't see that "invitation only" implies "beta", "demo", or "test". So I am not sure whether the assumption that "invite only implies beta, demo, or test" is really fair. Plus there are a bunch of apps in the App Store that are invitation only (Pinterest is probably the most famous one).</p>
  
  <p>So, here are 3 questions:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Does "invitation only" really imply "beta", "test", "demo"?</li>
  <li>What are good examples of apps / websites that are invitation only but not beta?</li>
  <li>How did you / would you get your invitation only apps accepted in the app store?</li>
  </ol>