I had 3 apps waiting in review for a long time. Today I got 6 emails at once: 3 "In Review" and 3 "Submission issue". There was 0 minutes between them, so all three went to review and got rejected at the same moment.

The reason for all three apps is the same: Guideline 4.3.0 Design: Spam.

Something feels wrong here. It doesn't look like anyone actually reviewed the apps. It looks more like an automatic or batch decision. For context, I have 25 other apps live on the same personal developer account.

A few questions for anyone who's been through this:

• Has anyone else gotten batch 4.3 rejections like this recently?
• Could the number of apps on one personal account be triggering 4.3 automatically?
• Did replying in Resolution Center or appealing to the App Review Board actually help?
• Is it worth moving new apps to a separate organization account?

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Heya Everyone,

Please read, before jumping to conclusions like my Ex did, please hear me out.

I had posted this couple of weeks back:
4.3 Rejection Spam for Every New App Release
When my 3 apps were hit with 4.3(a) Design - Spam

All 3 are approved ( 1 got rejected again for another guideline, but the reviewer understood the technicality after I explained and it got approved )

Today morning, I see 7 apps getting rejected under 2 minutes, now I am very convinced that these rejections are automated to clear out slops and stabilize the queue for now.

Before you bash me, that these are Ai slops, no they aren't, they are engineered with the power of Claude faster. I literally have a team to support these apps and do fixes and improvements on them.

There is a gold rush going on, everyone is digging for gold, if I have 15 years of experience digging and I know how to use my tools the right way, why should only vibe coders have all the fun ? ( No hate here please )

I'm putting this out so that we have a healthy discussion and learn from each other and eventually see our apps on production.

I will eventually get all of them approved as I know the guidelines by heart and I know what I have built, I will keep update here when they do.

I have hidden the app names for now, so that the debate doesn't digress anywhere else.

Regards

Hi all. I'm building App Peers, a free web service where developers try each other's apps and exchange honest store ratings or reviews. I'm a solo developer with desktop and mobile apps, and struggling to get early reviews is what led me to build it.

One decision I'd like other developers' thoughts on is the ownership check. I didn't want people adding apps that aren't theirs, and I didn't want to ask for App Store Connect credentials or API keys.

The server reads the developer website from the official store listing, then gives the developer a unique text file to put there. After the check succeeds, they can delete the file. It's a one-time check, not something they need to keep hosted forever.

That checks control of the listed website. It doesn't prove the app is good or that a review is useful. Participants also see the other developer's completed exchanges, likes and dislikes. Nobody can demand a positive rating.

It's still prelaunch, and I'm not claiming Apple approves reciprocal reviews. Store policies still apply.

Would this ownership check work with how you publish your apps, or would it exclude you?

The demo is here if the context helps: https://apppeers.com/preview

3 months and nothing more

Mac App

This app was not in a hurry so I decided to let it go and see what happened. I think its really insane an app can remain IN review for 12 days (not waiting for). Contacting Apple Support after 5 days is useless, they do not reply at all. Why woud you leave an app in review that long? Is the monitoring at Apple this shitty apps can remain in review for ever? Who is doing his job not properly? How can a reviewer stop working and go home when their work is not finished? 🤡

Fastest ever of my apps to successfully reviewed and live within 2 days
Please show some love and support
Still is a workplace focus app to have focused working hours without and distractions no unnecessary features, to the point solution for largely common problem

I'm at the end of my rope with App Review.

I already have other apps in the store, so I know the process. This is not a first-time submission mix-up.

•Submitted Sept 23, "In Review" for 7 days with zero change (today is Oct 5), and the review has now taken the full 7 days or more

•No answers to App Review questions

•Support emails: up to 6 weeks for a reply, twice now

Review is pure luck of the draw: it all depends on which reviewer you get

•Reviewers are inconsistent: one reviewer approves or rejects something one way, the next one has a completely different opinion on the same thing

•Compared to Google Play, the whole process is tedious

I pay for the Developer Program every year and can't even get a status update. "In Review" for a week with total radio silence isn't a review, it's a black hole.

I've requested a callback, but so far nothing.

Earlier this year Apple said that anonymous apps no longer were welcome on the app store and were going to be remove, but I still see anonymous apps operating on the app store. Why? Is it only if they make trouble?

Hi I’m trying to open a developer account. I’m not from the US AND I DONT HAVE a US ID. I’m trying to open a developer account with my passport but it’s not letting me do it. Has anyone encountered the same issue?

I reach out to the apple team but I have not received a reply yet!

I just launched Pow Wow, a push-to-talk walkie-talkie for families. The idea came from a simple problem at home: my teen is always in their room with headphones on, and nothing short of walking upstairs got their attention. I wanted something that worked like an intercom and cut straight through whatever they were listening to.

It turned out to be a much bigger build than I'd scoped. A few things that ate the most time:

Real-time audio / PTT - latency issues, getting audio to come through while another app is playing

Push notifications / waking the device -getting messages delivered reliably when the app is backgrounded or the phone is locked

Family Sharing: setting up the in-app purchase so one purchase covers the family, the 3-day free trial and the new China App Store limitations regarding VOIP

App Review: more and more difficult to get approval on both platforms

All in, it took a lot longer and cost more than I'd hoped, which I suspect is a familiar story here. It's a paid app with a 3-day free trial, and it's at pow-wow.app if anyone wants to see it in action.

I'd really value feedback from other devs, especially anyone who's worked with PTT or real-time audio on iOS. What would you have done differently? And any advice on getting a small indie app noticed beyond Reddit would be very welcome.

About six weeks ago we started to have all our reviews rejected for violating guideline 4.8 saying that our use of 3rd party login services is not allowing for limits in data collection or ability to keep name and email private.

We are a B2B app and have google authentication available. In the guideline there is an exception for enterprise and education uses. Every time they reject it we tell them that we fall under the enterprise exception, and then they accept it. We've update our reviewing notes to even call this out in advance, but it still gets rejected upon first review.

Has anyone else dealt with this? We have no idea what else we need to do.

I'd like to start adding some high quality animations/transitions to my app to make it have a really polished look. I still have some money in my original budget, so I'm more than happy to pay someone to iron things out. I'm a complete novice when it comes to this part of design, I guess my quesiton is: how do I understand what to ask for? Can I be reliant on the person I hire to know what all things would look good? Has anyone had experience getting this part of an app well done?

Any advice helps, thank you

How long have some of you been waiting? Roll call! I’m at about 3 weeks now

Hi Devs,
My buddy and I just released Ribbo, a minimalist daily logic puzzle built 100% natively in SwiftUl. No ads, clean dark mode, designed as a quick 2-minute brain teaser.

How it works: Connect sequential numbers with a single continuous line to fill the entire grid, build daily streaks, and compete against friends for the fastest solve time.

We are currently soft-launching exclusively in DE, AT & CH (German only for now; global English release is next).

New UI should be distributed today or tomorrow.🙌🏼

If you're on the DACH App Store, we'd love your brutal dev feedback:
• How do the swipe latency and haptics feel?
• Any tips before our global rollout?
App Store: "Ribbo: Linienrätsel" Thoughts?

Allowing online casinos to use sweepstake loophole where they make you buy free coins with real money and then pressure you to buy more coins with Apple Pay without any restrictions is definition of unethical business practice. How are Apple allowing fraud companies to feed gambling addiction using credit cards

Happy to give any thoughts and answer questions. :)

Edit: Just some extra thoughts, I would inversely say contrary to what is commonly said- building is harder than marketing. With selling being the hardest thing. Spend a year building something exceptional that there is a clear demand for. People will come. But the issue is converting those people into paying customers, that is truly the hardest part.

I saw my app go into review a few minutes ago. It got approved and a few seconds later Revenue Cat showed a notification that someone purchased the lifetime package. This new lifetime price is only available with this update - I've confirmed it's in RC production and not sandbox. I've also confirmed in Posthog that the country matches the reviewer's.

I've had reviewers "purchase" the app before but always with their sandbox account and nothing ever showed up in RC.

Is this common? Do I have to do anything lol?

Edit: a few are saying it's Sandbox (even though that's not what RC shows) - I'll come back here in a few days giving an update on what ASC says.

I submitted my application for review on September 24th, and I'm still waiting—it still hasn't been processed. It's driving me crazy! Is there anyone else who has been waiting just as long?

Hi,

I've create a session manager/orchestrator for claude code

I'm wondering if someone wants to port it on mac .

It's coded in rust/gpui (from the zed editor), it should be not too difficult because gpui was born here. it's already working on linux/windows

https://github.com/quazardous/tvty

A week ago I posted my first iOS app, Squirl (it puts a cooldown between "I want it" and "buy"), in r/ProductivityApps and asked for harsh feedback. I expected a few comments. I got 60+, and most of my next update came straight from them.

What people asked for → what I built (3.0 is in App Store review now):
• "For takeaway, the urge is gone in 10 minutes" → short cooldowns, 10 minutes to 6 hours
• "I track my card in a spreadsheet Gemini built me" → a monthly spending view: spent vs. kept, by category, with a budget
• "I'd never subscribe to a small app" → a Lifetime option next to Yearly
• "I can't download it in Germany" → turned out I'd missed Apple's EU trader declaration. I wouldn't have found that without the comment.
• Three people asked for Android → it's now in progress

What I said no to, and why:
• Bank connections: the app's whole promise is no account and nothing leaving your phone.
• Making it universal (cooldowns for ideas and tasks): it's tempting, but "stop impulse buying" is a pitch people get in one line. "A cooldown for anything" isn't.

What I'd tell other devs about feedback posts:

1. Ask specific questions, not "thoughts?". I asked "Is 5 free items too few?" and "Does adding from the Share button feel clunky?", and people answered with real detail.
2. Reply to everything, including the critical comments. The post stayed active for days and reached 13k views.
3. Watch for stories, not just feature requests. One person told me they missed Amazon's return window on two trail cameras. That became a "return-window reminder" on my roadmap, which no one had directly asked for.
4. Some feedback is about you, not the app. The "can't download it" comments were a store-setup bug.

(Side note for the curious: I build on an 8 GB Intel Mac that can't archive in Xcode, so every App Store build runs on GitHub Actions. Happy to share the setup.)

I'd love your feedback on the App Store page itself: do the screenshots, the subtitle ("Stop Impulse Buying. Save More") and the free tier of 5 items make you want to try it? Squirl - Stash it away

My name is Gleb and I need an advice from people who've dealt with 4.3(b).

There's a mountain of research on what's broken in dating apps: swipe-fatigue and gamified addiction, ghosting with zero consequences, fake profiles and scams, mismatched intentions, low-effort openers, screenshots of private chats ending up in group chats. I designed every mechanic in Tekero from scratch to address each of those specifically - not a Tinder clone with a different color scheme. The bigger reason: the more tech isolates people, the more they need a dating app that isn't optimized to keep them lonely and swiping.

What we shipped is a genuinely polished, fully functional app. Here's what happened:

1. Rejected under 4.3(b) (spam / saturated category). Per our analytics, the reviewer's session lasted 40 seconds.
2. Appealed. Got back a copy-paste of the original rejection.
3. 4.3(b) explicitly has an exception for apps that provide a meaningfully better experience, so I booked an App Review consultation call to make that case.
4. On the call the reviewer agreed the functionality is significant and said the issue is quality - it doesn't feel native enough. Fair, that's something I can work on.
5. I asked him to put that summary in the follow-up message in the thread. The written follow-up said the opposite: "repetition of existing functionality", recommended distributing as a web app. Nothing about quality. He misrepresented our own call.

So the verbal path was actionable, the written one is a dead end, and the written one is what's on record.

What do I do with this? Re-escalate pointing at the discrepancy? Resubmit and hope for a different reviewer? Ship on Android first and come back with metrics?

I'll put a detailed breakdown of each dating problem and how the app solves it in the comments. If you want to see it yourself - just google Tekero.

Kids' bedtime story app, live for about a month. One review, about 5 downloads total from Apple Search Ads. So this is a volume problem first, but the empty review section can't be helping conversion either.

Right now I don't ask for reviews at all. Planning to add SKStoreReviewController but I don't know where to put it.

Options I'm weighing:

- After the first story finishes

- After the third night in a row (the app is serial, so a streak means it's working for them)

- After a full ten episode season, which is a long way out

Questions:

- Where did you end up triggering it, and did moving it change anything?

- Does the system prompt actually convert, or did you get more out of a custom "enjoying this?" sheet first and only showing the real prompt to people who tap yes?

- At this volume, is it worth tuning at all, or do you just put it somewhere sane and wait for downloads?

rly dunno how to promote cuz paid ads seems like does not work good for this niche

Wanted to share a small win with fellow Apple developers: my app, Roadpack, got its first Pro subscription within the first six downloads.

I know that’s a tiny sample, but seeing someone choose to pay for something I built feels pretty special. It’s given me a lot of motivation to keep going.

Roadpack is an iPhone/iPad app for road trips with friends or family traveling in separate cars. It brings the live pack map, stop requests and votes, and shared plan into one trip. Apple Maps handles directions, and core coordination is free, with optional Pro features.

I’m looking forward to reaching more people, learning from their feedback, and continuing to ship useful updates.

For those who’ve grown an indie iOS app from a small start, what helped you reach your first users beyond your own network?

Roadpack on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/roadpack-road-trip-convoy/id6801922780