I am asking two things: whether the App Review Board has my appeal, and how one sentence in the decision should be read against the guideline. I am not asking for an exception. I will follow the Board's decision.
App: BeetMeet (Korea only, 19+), Apple ID 6819720059. Rejected Oct 8, 2026 under 4.3(a) and 4.3(b). I replied in App Store Connect the same day and filed an appeal through the App Review Board form on Oct 9. The form showed no case number, so I have no way to check its status except to ask here. No reply as of Oct 23.
4.3(a) is resolved. It came from an earlier record of the same app that still had a storefront. I removed every storefront from that record on Oct 8 and will not resubmit it.
4.3(b) is the question. The guideline says dating apps "are well established on the App Store and we will not accept new submissions unless they offer a meaningfully different or improved experience." The decision says the app "may include features or characteristics that distinguish it. However, there are already enough of these apps on the App Store."
Read side by side, the decision allows that the app may be distinguishable and then declines on the size of the category. The guideline makes the category's size the reason for the test, not its result. If I am reading this wrong, I would like to know how it should be read, so that I can act on the actual standard instead of guessing at it.
What I asked App Review to evaluate, in the demo account listed in App Review Information, takes about five minutes:
a. Home > "Another me" > Report. The user's own model, built from a 91-item assessment and 13 guided conversations. Matching cannot start before this model exists.
b. Situation cards. The user answers 10 relationship situations first, then grades how their own model answered each one.
c. Match card. At most one person, shown only when 1,000 simulated encounters and seven staged conversations score 90% or higher. The full simulated conversation and an eleven-axis score breakdown are one tap away. If no one reaches 90%, the screen says so. There is no browsing, feed, swipe, or list anywhere in the app.
d. Chat. Seven days, photos blurred until the last day, revealed only if both people consent.
The three screenshots attached to the decision show the match tab, the chat tab, and the match card. Screens a and b, and the transcript and breakdown under c, are not among them. My reply in App Store Connect asked which features duplicate what is widely available and whether a and b were evaluated. The reply did not name a feature or answer either question.
Two requests:
- Confirm whether the Oct 9 appeal is in the Board's queue.
- If the Board finds the difference not meaningful, say which of a, b, or c is widely available. One sentence is enough. I will build on it or stop.
I agree this is a dating app. I am asking only that the guideline's own test be applied to the screens where the difference lives.