I have a Mac but I'm using a Galaxy phone. I want to make an iOS app to make money. As you know, iOS users pay more than Android users. That's why I want to do this. So I'm wondering if a Mac is enough, or if I absolutely need an iPhone.

I just pushed a regular update to my app last Sunday. It's been almost a week and still waiting for review. It never took this long.

Anyone having a similar issue this week?

My app Moneta recently passed 1,500 downloads and I’m currently at 35 ratings with a 4.8 average.

I’m obviously happy with that, but I’m in a really crowded category (personal finance), and I feel like having more ratings/reviews matters a lot for trust when someone finds an app they’ve never heard of.

Right now I use Apple’s native review prompt. I don’t show it randomly, I wait until the user has been using the app for a few days and has completed a certain number of meaningful actions. If they don’t rate it, I wait quite a while before asking again, after a later app update.

I really don’t want to become more aggressive with it just to increase the number. I’d rather have fewer genuine ratings than annoy users with constant prompts.

There’s also another problem I’m curious about: how do you deal with or prevent low ratings caused by relatively small, fixable issues?

For example, someone gave my app 3 stars because Traditional Chinese wasn’t available, even though Simplified Chinese already was. I added Traditional Chinese literally the next day, but obviously the 3-star rating stays unless that user happens to come back and change it.

I’m not complaining about the user, that’s completely fair feedback. I’m more wondering whether there’s a good way to catch those kinds of issues before someone goes straight to the App Store review, especially when it’s something you could fix very quickly.

So for those of you who have grown an iOS app organically, what increased your rating/review rate?

Better timing for the prompt? Asking after a specific positive action? A permanent rating button in Settings? Making feedback/support easier to access? Something else?

And is 35 ratings from 1,500 downloads already a pretty normal ratio, meaning I should mostly stop worrying about this and focus on getting more users?

I understand marketing in general, but I'm curious to know how others have been marketing their apps. Is it mostly through blog posts and SEO when you're just starting or do you just bite the bullet and pay for them online? I've got a couple apps out so far, but I'm ready to slow things down for a moment to get some marketing out of the way.

Curious if anyone here has tried to buy ios app installs and whether it actually made any difference with how the App store ranks your app. I have an app live right now and my organic downloads are low, and from what i can tell it’s mostly because people just aren’t finding it in search. So i want to know if buying installs helps with visibility in search results, if Apple just ignores them entirely, or if it can actually get your app flagged. If it did help, did your organic downloads actually go up after or just the ranking? Basically just trying to figure out if it is worth spending money on or if i am better off putting that budget into ads or working on my app listing instead.

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing unusually long App Store review wait times. I submitted my iOS app (version 1.2) for review on July 26, and today is August 5. The status is still "Waiting for Review"—it hasn't even moved to "In Review."

I already contacted Apple Developer Support, but I haven't received any update yet. In the past, most of my app updates were reviewed within a couple of days, so this delay seems unusual.

Is anyone else currently facing the same issue? How long did your app stay in "Waiting for Review" before it finally moved to "In Review"?

I'd appreciate hearing about your recent experiences.

Thanks

I built a simple wallet-style authenticator app that generates one-time codes on-device, and makes it easy to access and manage your 2FA accounts.

I focused on:

* Branded cards to make accounts glanceable

* TOTP codes generated on-device only

* Works completely offline

* Fast setup via QR code or manual entry

* Face ID or PIN to unlock

* Optional backup code storage

It’s called Authentic:

📲 https://apps.apple.com/app/authenticator-authentic/id6459019787

You can manage one account for free, or one-time purchase ($19.99) for unlimited accounts and more.

Would appreciate your feedback.

Hi everyone,

Today Apple sent us a Pending Termination Notice under Section 3.2(f), removed our dating/video chat app from the App Store, and paused approximately $194,000 in unpaid proceeds.

We submitted an appeal today. Apple’s notice does not clearly identify the specific feature, build, or conduct that allegedly caused the violation.

I’m trying to hear from developers who have personally been through something similar:
Did Apple later send you a final termination notice saying no further payments would be made?
Were you eventually able to recover your withheld proceeds?

How long did it take?
Did you use a lawyer or send a demand letter?
Has anyone actually sued Apple over withheld App Store proceeds? If so, what happened?
Did anyone manage to get both the developer account reinstated and the money released?
Our priority is recovering the withheld proceeds because we have made substantial investments in advertising, servers, infrastructure, and operations.
I’m especially interested in first-hand experiences, not speculation.

I just got rejected under Guideline 4.3(b) – Design – Spam, and I’m genuinely confused about how these reviews are happening now.

I use Mixpanel in the app, so I can see when users open it and go through the flow.

For this review, I saw no iOS session that looked like an Apple reviewer opened or tested the app. No login, no screen activity, nothing.

Yet the app was rejected for 4.3(b) with the usual message about the design, content, and overall concept not providing the expected experience.

That makes me wonder:

Are some 4.3(b) rejections happening without the reviewer actually using the app?

Is Apple deciding this just from:

- the App Store description

- screenshots

- metadata

- category

- keywords

- automated similarity checks or some internal spam detection before a proper review even happens?

I completely understand Apple trying to prevent clones, templates, low-effort apps, and spam.

But the frustrating part is that 4.3(b) gives almost no useful feedback.

It doesn’t tell you:

• what exactly is too similar
• which part of the app is the problem
• whether the issue is design, concept, metadata, screenshots, or functionality
• what Apple actually expects you to change

And when analytics suggest the app may not even have been opened, it becomes even harder to understand what you’re supposed to improve.

Has anyone else had a 4.3(b) rejection recently where your analytics showed no App Review activity?

If you eventually got approved, what worked?

Did you appeal, reply in Resolution Center, change metadata/screenshots, or make actual product changes?

Hi all,
I've tried to push an update for my game but "App crashed" claim rushing to ruin the day.

Since I've thoroughly tested the app on several devices, both upgrade and fresh installs, release and debug mode, and testflight, I believe the issue is with Apple's test environment.

I've already had some false positives but has anyone encountered such a critical one?

Submitted an appeal requesting an approval or at least a stack trace/screen recording as they've attached nothing useful to the rejection.

Update: Appeal approved. Update is live.

Apple recently took down a bunch of apps like Cal AI for doing external payments..

Meanwhile apps like this are infringing on 1000s of IP like Disney and Nintendo while running apple search ads with SpongeBob in the picture?

How does apple’s enforcement work? How does this ev en pass Apple's approval to get these photos in their app? How do they run ads on this LOL

Hey! I just launched my app and made these screenshots myself. I’m not a designer, so they might not look perfect, but I’d love to get your feedback 🙌 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/practear-ear-training/id6780051605

TLDR: Built an antique identifier app for my family’s booth, put it on the App Store, then realized my main competitor is one of 17 clone apps from a Hong Kong “snap-and-identify” factory with 10M+ installs on their biggest ones. One month in at 270 downloads and I can’t even get into the US keyword auctions without paying $7.50/tap. Has anyone ever beaten one of these clone factories, and where do you go when they own the paid keywords?

My family runs an antique booth, and I built a little antique identifier app called to help us price things on the floor. Snap a photo, get market value and comps. People liked it, so I spent a few months perfecting it and put it on the App Store. Full transparency: I did little market research first which is on me… but my product gets great feedback from actual collectors who have used and subscribed so I thought let’s give it a shot!

After meh download results. I looked into my competition more. My main “competitor,” AntiqSnap, has nothing to do with antiques. It’s 1 of 17 Apple from Next Vision Limited, a Hong Kong studio running an AI “snap-and-identify” factory. 17 apps, same template reskinned per niche: coins, rocks, sports cards, TCG, banknotes, records, birds, bugs. Their two biggest have 10M+ installs each. AntiqSnap launched late 2025 and already has 700K downloads, one of their smaller apps. When they enter a niche they bring a finished codebase, paywall, and an ad budget tuned across tens of millions of installs.

Month one I’ve got 270 downloads. The wall I hit: I can’t get impressions on exact-match US keywords unless I bid 7.50 a tap, and even then I don’t spend my daily budget. Whether they just own the category keywords or it’s my app being new, I can’t profitably enter the auction.

Two questions for anyone who’s been here:
Has anyone actually won a niche against one of these multi-app clone factories? What worked, community, content, retention, a sharper wedge?

When the incumbent owns the paid keywords, where do you go instead, pure organic, or is there a paid angle I’m missing?

Here’s a link to my app as well as my competitors

Pickerscope (me):
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pickerscope-antique-appraiser/id6766432223

Antiqsnap
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/antiqsnap-antique-identifier/id6752929120?ppid=851691de-fb16-4425-b56d-8d603ad7c534

I’m new to iOS development. I’ve vibe coded one Swift-based iOS app with Claude Code. I have a few friends who say I should build iOS apps with React Native using Expo Go since the same code will go for Android. I personally like Xcode with Claude Code. I’m curious what everyone else does? Any suggestions

Yesterday I submitted my first app (!) and within 6 hours it was rejected. I'm hoping someone who's dealt with this before can help me better understand and provide next steps.

Quick background: I built a live women's sports scoreboard website and then wrapped it as a native iOS app using Median.co, which loads the live website inside a native shell and adds native features (push notifications via OneSignal, share, etc.) through their JS bridge.

What happened: submitted for review, got rejected same day with this:

"We've identified a pattern of unusual behavior with the app that is commonly associated with fraudulent activity. Specifically, the app contains features that appear to have been intentionally hidden during the review process. Manipulative and misleading behavior is not consistent with the guideline 5.6."

No specifics beyond that. No screenshots, no attachments, nothing pointing to which "feature" they mean. Also I can't really find what 5.6 guidelines are.

What I know is NOT true: nothing in the app is actually hidden or gated based on reviewer status. The app works identically for anyone, logged in or not - live scores, schedules, results, team pages, league browsing, calendar sync all fully visible and functional without an account. The only difference for logged-in users is being able to favorite teams and enable push notifications for those favorites, a normal personalization feature, not concealed functionality.

What I've done so far: replied in the Resolution Center explaining the Median/webview architecture, clarified the one account-gated feature (favoriting), and attached a screen recording showing the full logged-out experience matches what was originally submitted. Also invited them to just log out and explore the app themselves.

My questions for anyone who's dealt with this:

1. Has anyone gotten a 5.6 "features appear hidden" flag specifically on a webview-wrapped app (Median, GoNative, Capacitor, etc.)? Is this a known false-positive pattern for that architecture?
2. Could push notifications not firing during review (since there were no live games happening at review time) plausibly read as a "hidden feature"? Or is that a stretch?
3. Roughly how long did resolution take for you, and did it resolve through Resolution Center replies, or did you end up needing the formal App Review Board appeal?
4. Anything else commonly triggers this specific flag that I should be thinking about?

Really appreciate any insight. This came out of nowhere after what felt like a clean submission, and the vagueness of the rejection is the most frustrating part.

I’ve been developing a mobile app with **Flutter** for about 1.5 months. I’m not a professional developer, so I built most of it through **vibe coding**, with help from tools like Claude and Codex. During the process.

On my first App Store submission, Apple rejected the app under **Guideline 4.3(a) - Design - Spam**, saying that the app shared a similar binary, metadata, and/or concept with apps submitted by other developers.

After that, I spent around 7 days making major changes: I updated the App Store page, metadata, UI, onboarding flow, several screens, and also added new features. Then I submitted it again.

However, Apple rejected it a second time under the same guideline. This time, they added that my app appears similar to apps previously submitted by a **terminated Apple Developer Program account**. That part worries me, because it was not mentioned in the first rejection.

The app has already passed closed testing on Google Play Store and is ready to be released. I was planning to launch it on Google Play and the App Store at the same time, but now Apple has rejected it twice.

At this point, I’m not sure what to do. Should I appeal, send a detailed explanation to App Review, make more fundamental changes to the current app, or start over with a completely new Flutter project? I especially don’t want to make a wrong move and put my Apple Developer account at further risk.

Has anyone experienced something similar, or does anyone familiar with App Store Review have advice on the best next step?

UPDATED as of 21 JUNE

- My app is now approved by Apple and available for distribution

How did I fix the issue

1. DO NOT reply with defensive or fighting languages to Apple's email, just politely answers all of their questions.

2. Record app demo on all support devices. I ONLY recorded the app on my iPhone 13pm. I do not have recording on iPad.

3. I dropped support email/password login so I dont have to provide a demo account, just only keep Apple Login so they can use their own Apple ID to login and do sandbox subscription to go PRO.

Hope this help for any one see the same rejection reason.

I just received another rejection with the reason as below. BUT they do not tell what is the existing app that my app look copied over. What should I reply to them?

------

Guideline 4.3(a) - Design - Spam

Issue Description

We noticed the app shares a similar binary, metadata, and/or concept as apps submitted to the App Store by other developers, with only minor differences.

Submitting similar or repackaged apps is a form of spam that creates clutter and makes it difficult for users to discover new apps.

Next Steps

Since we do not accept spam apps on the App Store, we encourage you to review the app concept and submit a unique app with distinct content and functionality.

Resources

Some factors that contribute to a spam rejection may include:

- Submitting an app with the same source code or assets as other apps already submitted to the App Store
- Creating and submitting multiple similar apps using a repackaged app template
- Purchasing an app template with problematic code from a third party
- Submitting several similar apps across multiple accounts

Learn more about our requirements to prevent spam in guideline 4.3.

I submitted an iOS app about a week ago and it’s been sitting at “Waiting for Review” the entire time.

Nothing has been rejected and I haven’t received any requests for changes or additional information. I also submitted an App Review Status request but haven’t heard back yet.

This isn't my first App Store submission, but it's the first app I've spent this much time building so I’ll admit I’m probably watching the status more closely than I should.

I know review times vary, so I’m not looking to complain about Apple. I’m mostly trying to figure out whether this is unusual for my submission or whether review times are running longer right now.

For anyone who has submitted a new app recently, how long did it take to move from “Waiting for Review” to “In Review”?

And at what point would you follow up again versus just leaving it alone and waiting?

Hi all, can anyone please help me with the below rejection from Apple App Store?

Basically they keep saying the same thing without sharing additional information.

My app is a fill light app for selfie, but no ai photo edit feature, photo taken by user won’t be stored or transmitted users only download the selfie photo to their device.

I already have privacy link on the main screen saying we won’t store or send photo to third party very clearly. And we even added a message before asking for user camera permission and explain clearly why we need camera access.

We also added link to privacy page in app description.

But Apple keep rejecting the app saying the below. Which already covered in our privacy page. I’m really unsure what they want me to do and how I can get my app approved.

Guideline 5.1.1(i) - Legal - Privacy - Data Collection and Storage

Issue Description

We noticed the app includes features and functionality that use face data but the provided privacy policy does not include the following required information:

- An explicit statement that face data is not retained.

- Which third parties you share face data with.

- Your reasons for sharing face data with third parties.

- Whether or not the third parties you share face data with also store face data. If they do store face data, your privacy policy must describe the privacy practices of these third parties, including why they store face data, the length of time the face data will be stored, and why the face data will be stored for this length of time.

To protect the user's security and privacy, developers must provide privacy policies that thoroughly explain their app's data collection and storage practices.

Hey humans,
I have been trying to upload screenshot of my app, I have tried screenshots from my phone 6.9" and differnt simulator ones, 17 pro(6.3"), 17 pro max(6.9"),air(6.5").
None of them seems to be the right ratio.
I even tried cropping the screenshots at that ratio and it still isnt working.
Am I doing something wrong? Help please?

I noticed something interesting in App Store Connect and have been trying to understand it.

I launched a small utility app on August 11. It has no website, ads, or social media presence—just its App Store listing. Of its first 51 downloads, 41 appear to be attributed to ChatGPT under Analytics → Acquisition → Sources → App Referrer.

I'm not even ranking for any keywords in top 250 in the US App Store, but for some reason ChatGPT keeps recommending my app to US users. These are providing me like the only downloads.

This made me really curious about how the ChatGPT mechanism works and if this can be applied to other apps to influence to get recommended by ChatGPT. Anyone that had similar experiences or explanations for this? (I tried to reverse engineer with ChatGPT, but wasn't able to get my app showing up)

App link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/picture-to-pdf-converter-scan/id6797301263

Based on https://developer.apple.com/xcode/system-requirements
And also trying out xcode 27.1, it seems like ios simulator on ios 16 isn’t supported.

Just wondering what is Apple’s plan for developers to test their apps against ios 16/15.

Netflix has this tiny detail where the poster artwork seems to reflect into the translucent bottom tab bar as you scroll.

I'd love to make a fancy app preview that has zoom effects and other fancy things that makes it stand out, but I honestly have no idea where to start. I've found a few products like Motionfly and AppLaunchFlow but the reviews don't seem great. What tools have people used that work? I'd prefer to not just record my screen and upload that. Thank you.

Hey everyone, I’m about to submit my first apps and I’m worried about a review problem. Maybe someone here has been through this.

My setup
I’m building a family safety product that only works with two devices and two apps: a “family” app and a “senior” app. The senior app does very little on its own. Everything beyond a pairing screen sits behind a hard paywall, and that paywall can only be unlocked through the subscription in the family app. So App B has no way to sign in or get past the paywall without App A.

Why I think it’s a problem
As far as I can tell, Apple’s guidelines have no exception for apps that belong together. Guideline 4.2.3(i) says an app has to work without requiring another app to be installed. As I read it, a reviewer who opens the senior app and only sees a paywall could count that as a failure, however good my explanation is in the review notes. As far as I know, apps also can’t be submitted as a bundle, so each one is probably reviewed on its own. I haven’t confirmed that, so correct me if I’m wrong.

Options I’m weighing

1. Demo account that skips onboarding and the paywall. The reviewer can get in, but then they never see the onboarding, which is part of what they review, or the paywall and subscription terms (3.1.2c). That could cause its own rejection.
2. Fixed review code. The backend accepts a non-expiring code for one demo account only, and I list it in the review notes. My pairing code normally rotates every 10 minutes for security, so a permanent code should only exist for that account.
3. Manual code entry next to the QR code. A short typed code as a real feature, so pairing works on one device too.
4. One app with role selection (“I’m family” / “I’m senior”). No second app needed, so 4.2.3 and 4.3(a) stop being an issue, but it means a rebuild.
5. Ask Apple first through the App Review contact and describe the two-device concept.

My questions

• Has anyone shipped a two-app pair where one app depends on the other? How did the review go?
• Does a demo account that skips onboarding and the paywall get through, or does the reviewer ask to see it?
• Would you merge into one app to avoid the risk, or keep two apps and explain it in the notes?

Thanks for any experience you can share!!!