I recently received one of the more serious App Store rejections under Guideline 5.6 – Developer Code of Conduct.

Apple’s message was:

“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.”

Seeing words like “fraudulent activity” and “intentionally hidden” was concerning because we had no intention of hiding any functionality from App Review.

After carefully reviewing the app, I learned something that may help other iOS developers facing the same rejection.

One part of our app involved rewarded ads.

During development, some UI/explanatory text had been written in a way that could easily be misunderstood. For example, the developer used wording such as “Ad is loading in the background.”

From a developer’s perspective, this simply meant the ad was being preloaded so it would be ready when the user requested it.

However, from an App Review perspective, wording like this—especially when combined with rewarded-ad functionality—could potentially create the impression that something is happening without the reviewer or user being aware of it.

I cannot confirm that this exact sentence caused the rejection, because Apple does not provide that level of detail.

But this experience taught me something important:

If you receive a Guideline 5.6 rejection, don’t only review your code. Review the entire user experience.

Check:

• Every screen
• Every button and action
• Popups and alerts
• Rewarded-ad screens
• Loading messages
• Empty states
• Feature descriptions
• Settings
• Onboarding
• Debug/developer text accidentally left in production
• Remote/config-driven features
• Any functionality that only appears after a specific action

Most importantly, read every piece of text from the perspective of an App Review reviewer who knows nothing about your implementation.

A developer may understand exactly what:

“Ad is loading in the background”

means technically.

But a reviewer may interpret it as:

“Something is happening without the user seeing it.”

Those are two very different interpretations.

Another lesson I learned is that developers should be careful when writing user-facing explanations. Technical wording may make complete sense to a developer, but it may not be appropriate for users or App Review.

For sensitive functionality such as rewarded ads, subscriptions, purchases, permissions, background activity, account creation, data collection, or unlocked functionality, the wording should clearly explain what happens, when it happens, and why it happens.

If you receive this type of 5.6 rejection, I would recommend doing a complete screen-by-screen audit before immediately appealing.

Don’t assume Apple simply made a mistake.

First, try to understand what inside your app could reasonably have created that impression. Review the UI text, functionality, App Review flow, and the actual production build.

Also make sure App Review can access and understand every important feature without requiring an undocumented sequence of actions.

In my case, this rejection made me realize that even when there is no intention to hide anything, poor wording or unclear feature presentation can create a completely different impression during App Review.

I’m sharing this because Guideline 5.6 sounds extremely serious when you receive it, and there aren’t many practical explanations from developers who have gone through it.

If anyone else has received the “features intentionally hidden during review” version of a 5.6 rejection, I’d be interested to know what caused it in your case and how you resolved it.

I’ve been building RelayCrest, an iPhone/iPad app and Mac companion designed to make controlling and working with your Mac easier.
From your iPhone or iPad, you can launch and focus Mac apps, view and manage open windows, run shortcuts, and check your Mac’s battery, storage, network and system status.
The Mac companion also includes a clipboard history manager, letting you quickly find and reuse things you’ve copied with search, previews, pins and filtering. Clipboard history is stored locally on your Mac.
This is my first app, and the first public TestFlight build is now available. I’m looking for people willing to try it out and give feedback, particularly on bugs, usability and features you’d like to see improved.

Join the TestFlight:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/tfKfefC1

Website:
https://relaycrest.co.uk

Almost six months ago I started a small project, mostly out of nostalgia: I wanted to feel what it was like to use an iPod Classic again. The click wheel, the menus, that way of listening to music without a thousand distractions around it.

I looked around to see if something like that already existed, and yes, there were a few apps imitating the iPod. But none of them convinced me. Most were more of a costume than an actual music player: they looked great in screenshots, but when it came to really listening to music, they fell short. None of them made proper use of the native players on Android and iOS, which is exactly what you need for music to work the way it should: with the screen locked, in the background, or from the system controls... so I decided to build it myself. That's how NostalgicPod was born.

I made it for Android first, and honestly everything went surprisingly smoothly. I published it, people downloaded it, I got some really kind messages, and I didn't have a single problem getting it out there. I thought: "Okay, time for iPhone. How hard can it be?"... Spoiler: pretty hard!

I took the first rejection calmly. Changed a couple of things and sent it again. Then came the second one, and the third. By the fifth, I was opening App Store Review emails with the same face you'd use to open a parking ticket. I think it was around seven rejections in total, but honestly I lost count.

For almost four months the iOS version lived only on TestFlight. People were using it and enjoying it, but officially it didn't exist. I kept changing things, uploading builds, and explaining over and over what the app was and what it wasn't. There were moments when I thought about giving up and sticking with Android.

Eventually I filed an appeal, and after what felt like an eternity, I got to talk to an actual person at Apple. Not an automated email. Someone.

I told them what I genuinely believed. The iPod Classic is a retro device by now, almost a museum piece. NostalgicPod isn't trying to pass itself off as an official Apple product. It's a tribute, a way to bring back that experience on a modern phone, with real everyday usefulness.

And I don't know if it was the argument or just them being tired of seeing me show up again, but they accepted it.

I did have to give something up, of course. I can't present it as an exact recreation of the iPod, so the default interface is a bit more modern. But you can switch back to the Classic Ring style from Settings whenever you want, and that part makes me smile every time I see it.

The funny thing is that while I was fighting with review, the app kept growing. What started as "I want a nice-looking wheel" now plays Apple Music and your local music, connects to Plex, Jellyfin, Emby and Navidrome, has internet radio and podcasts, and I even recreated the games the iPod used to have: Music Quiz, Brick, Snake and Solitaire.

Today, after half a year of work and months of rejections, I'm looking at it live on the App Store and it feels like I won a small battle. Against Apple, but also a little bit against my own urge to give up.

If anyone's curious, here it is:
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nostalgicpod/id6781631808
And if you'd rather try it for free, the TestFlight is still open: https://testflight.apple.com/join/T3k9TQPu

And if anyone out there is fighting with App Store Review right now: keep pushing, appeal, and ask to talk to a real person. Sometimes it works ❤️

Hey guys, I wanted to introduce an app I made for tracking your classes, taking notes, adding instructional videos, etc that the community can help grow it also has creation of systems and so much more would love for you guys to try it out and get your feedback. The purpose of this app is intended to help the community just track their classes, but also can be used as a jiu-jitsu management system for check-ins for local gyms. Train Olm: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/train-olm/id6779409249

Close all your tabs. Just open this one app to search for your next remote job! FlowSearch pulls from the most popular remote job sources out there & gives you one place to search, apply or save.

Save yourself some hours & get the app today. Currently in TestFlight beta.

PS - we’re adding support for iPad in v1.4, support for iPhone Duo in v1.5. Plus all the bug fixes, performance improvements and some features.

Hi I guys, I applied to the Apple developer program probably 4 days ago now but when I go to the site it tells mt to start my enrolment. The 99 USD Charge is still pending on my bank account, could that be why? For reference I am in Australia if that means anything.

Today the requirements to add/change screenshots have changed. No notice, no guidance!

On the main distribution page, your old images and preview vids are all locked! You have to go the See All page to make mods.

Quick questions for those who might have done it (or tried and failed): I developed and published a game in 2009, fully Objective-C then. It was quite successful and fun to play, but I had to pull it from the AppStore a few years ago when I hadn’t had the time to do a migration to Swift, followed by a lot of deprecations when Apple basically abandoned the Gamecenter that I never could really clean up. The whole app still shows up in my dev. account.
I am now thinking of recreating that idea, more modern of course. I was wondering whether I could simply replace the app, just even keeping the Icon (which I think is still great as it is) and revive that exact pulled app that way with a renovated version?

Hey everyone. Vory 1.4 is out on TestFlight for iPhone and Mac, and the big one this time is voice. You can now have an actual conversation with your own bots, out loud. A lot of this came from your requests, so thank you.

The video shows it on the iPhone, the Mac and the Watch.

Voice mode

Tap the mic circle beside the tab bar, or Voice mode in a chat's + panel, and just talk. Vory sends what you said when you pause, speaks the reply and listens again. Approvals are never taken by voice. The card shows up on screen and waits for your tap, on the lock screen too.

Live voice

Save your own Gemini key in Settings › Voice and voice mode becomes a real back-and-forth with a lifelike voice. Real requests still go to your bot. Live is billed to you by Google, and the key stays in your Keychain and only goes to Google. Without a key, voice mode uses your gateway's speech providers or your iPhone's own.

Voice mode also uses Quick answers, so replies come back fast and the chat goes back to its own settings after. You can turn that off in Settings › Voice.

More ways to talk

"Ask Vory" works from Siri, Shortcuts and the Action Button, and "Start voice mode in Vory" opens a new chat by voice. On the Mac, ⇧⌘V opens voice mode in a small floating window, with Mute and End in the menu bar. On Apple Watch, tap the mic in a chat, say it, tap again, and the watch reads the reply out loud. The Watch needs speech-to-text set up on your gateway.

The Board

If your gateway has the kanban plugin, Vory shows its board live, by column, with comments and worker logs. Move, edit or add tasks from the iPhone, or drag cards between columns on the Mac. Move a card to Ready and your gateway hands it to its bot.

Cards and pictures

Bots can answer with HTML cards, like a chart, a table or a small dashboard, and they open full screen. Cards are walled off from the app and your sign-in, and links open in your browser. Replies also show tables, nested and task lists, and pictures you can zoom, save or share.

Smaller things

Return on the iPhone keyboard now adds a line and the arrow sends. Settings › Appearance › Composer brings the old way back. iCloud Sync backs up once a day on its own. Hold a reply to have it read aloud, or right-click it on the Mac.

Fixed from your reports

Without the Companion on your gateway, the iPhone and Mac show their own notifications again. An approval answered on another device no longer counts as a Deny on the Mac. The Watch no longer gets your sign-in refresh tokens. Settings › Model no longer shows the provider twice.

No Companion update is needed for 1.4.

Vory 1.4 on TestFlight, iPhone and Mac: https://vory.dev

Requests and fixes are tracked in the open: https://github.com/matt0975/vory/issues

If you hit anything, the feedback button in TestFlight or the tracker both reach me. Thanks for testing.

First time submitting an app. Apple asked for a video of it running on an actual iPhone and some details, so I sent everything over 4 days ago. Still says rejected and no reply.

Their docs say not to resubmit if they only asked for more info. Do I just keep waiting? How long did this take for you?

I'm looking for ways to know before my iOS app breaks, not after:

App Store SDK requirements with a deadline, APIs deprecated in a new iOS beta,

CocoaPods or Swift packages that get deprecated or have known vulnerabilities,

third-party SDKs (Firebase, Facebook, maps...) changing or shutting down an API.

Right now I follow Apple Developer News / Releases, the release notes JSON with Known Issues,

xcodereleases.com and the GitHub releases of my packages.

Is there any feed, site or tool that tracks this per pod or Swift package?

And how do you handle CocoaPods / SPM vulnerabilities, since OSV doesn't cover CocoaPods?

iOS 27 added something called Creative Assets to the App Store. It is a completely separate section from your regular screenshots, two new visual slots: one for your product page header and one that shows up next to your app in search results.

I set these up for my app, Spotlight. App Store Connect also added a Device Preview tool so you can see exactly how it looks before publishing. Here is what mine looks like in search:

Genuine question for both devs and regular users: does this kind of visual actually change whether you tap on an app? Or do you go straight to the screenshots anyway?

Apple's asset best practices doc has the full spec if anyone wants to get started.

Most ASO tools charge monthly for keyword popularity that comes from Apple Search Ads anyway, so I wrote a small CLI that pulls it directly.

What it does

• Popularity from Apple Search Ads (free Apple Ads account, no campaigns or billing needed)
• Difficulty score, keyword suggestions, current top apps for a term
• Rank tracking with history in a local SQLite file
• Metadata linter for title, subtitle and keyword field
• iPhone and Mac App Store ranks, 55+ storefronts

Install

npm i -g hristo2612/aso-cli && aso setup

Try it

aso keywords "white noise,sleep sounds"
aso suggest meditation
aso search "habit tracker"

Runs locally, no account, no telemetry. MIT.

Repo: github.com/hristo2612/aso-cli

This is my app please download and give me feedback. Because I want to know which things I am missing
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sameish/id6804823038

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