Hello Apple Developer Community,
I am an independent developer and I have reached a point where I genuinely do not understand what the correct path forward is.
I have invested a very significant amount of personal time and money into Zivoo. The app has never been released on the App Store.
Every time App Review provided feedback, I tried to address it seriously and substantially redesign the product instead of simply resubmitting the same application.
The first versions of Zivoo focused on real-time social communication. Later, the app was rejected under Guideline 4.3(b) because Apple considered the experience too similar to existing dating apps.
In response, we substantially redesigned the product again. Profile browsing, swipes, likes, skips and mutual-like mechanics were removed.
The current Zivoo is focused on language learning and real-time language practice through active conversation rooms, AI-assisted room discovery, entry requests, live conversations, voice/video messages, reactions, shared mini-games and invitations for future practice.
The application-specific code, backend, UI system, custom assets, product logic and more than 35 custom animations were developed specifically for Zivoo. We have never purchased a white-label app, cloned another application, purchased an app template or repackaged another developer's product.
We do use standard third-party SDKs such as Yandex Mobile Ads, mediation SDKs, Firebase, AppMetrica, Lottie and others.
During this process, we may also have made an important mistake.
Previous Zivoo submissions used:
confident.zivoo, ru.zivoo.social
The current submission uses:
ru.zivoo.talk
All of these Bundle IDs belong to the same Apple Developer Team.
Zivoo has never been published on the App Store, and multiple versions of Zivoo have never been publicly distributed at the same time.
After previous rejections and major redesigns, we removed previous App Store records. Because the concept had changed significantly, we mistakenly believed that the redesigned product should be submitted under a new App Store record and Bundle ID.
This was never intended to bypass App Review or distribute multiple copies of the same app.
The current submission has now been rejected under Guideline 4.3(a), stating that it shares a similar binary, metadata and/or concept with apps submitted by us or other developers.
The most difficult part of this process is that we are never clearly told what exactly is considered wrong.
With each rejection, we receive a broad guideline reference, but not a specific explanation of which code, asset, metadata element, feature or concept triggered the decision.
We currently see two possible explanations:
Apple's systems may be matching the current submission against our own previous Zivoo submissions under different Bundle IDs. Shared third-party SDK components may be contributing to the binary similarity signal. Our technical analysis shows that standard third-party libraries represent a substantial portion of the measured build.
We fully understand that this does not prove that the SDKs caused the rejection.
At this point, however, I am afraid to simply make random changes and resubmit again, especially because the latest rejection also includes an Extended Review warning.
I am not asking for automatic approval or special treatment.
I simply want to understand what Apple actually expects us to fix.
Can 4.3(a) be triggered by a developer's own previous submissions under different Bundle IDs, even if none of them were ever released?
Can common third-party SDKs contribute to the similarity determination?
And if Apple believes our application-specific code, assets or concept are similar to another developer's app, how can we verify or address that?
I am prepared to provide client and backend source code, Git history, original design files, dependency information, build details and a live demonstration.
If anyone has experienced a similar case, especially after removing previous app records and submitting a substantially redesigned version under a new Bundle ID, I would greatly appreciate hearing how it was resolved.
If Apple Staff sees this post, I would be extremely grateful for concrete guidance on what exactly we should do next.
Thank you.