Hi, We have an app live on the App Store since August 2020. We have made some 50+ updates on the app with minor & major changes throughout these 3+ years. A few months ago we submitted an update as usual with some minor changes and a new feature but got 'Design Spam, 4.3' rejection saying: We noticed your app shares a similar binary, metadata, and/or concept as apps submitted to the App Store by other developers, with only minor differences. 1st question, how does an app that has been doing the same things for 3+ years suddenly gets 'Design Spam' ???? Then we sent a message to App Review with some screenshots of our app's update history taken from App Store Connect console and a message stating the same question as above. We got a reply: Hello, Thank you for your reply. During our review, we found that this app duplicates the content and functionality and icon of other apps submitted to the App Store, which is considered a form of spam and is not appropriate for the App Store. Now they mentioned 'Icon' as well. So after some searching we found that another App was using our app's icon and it went live in 2023. We have had this app icon since January 2021 and instead of taking action against the other developer Apple rejected our app. Upon further communication with App Review, their replies got robotic and only copy pasted the previous response of 4.3, 4.3, 4.3... Anyways we scheduled a call with someone from App Review board and meanwhile we started the process of getting copyrights for our app's icon. The call was, as expected, unfruitful and the person on the other side of the call stated the same things as in the messages from App Review. This person was not fluent in English which communication even more difficult and hence ended without any progress. We got copyrights for our app's icon and filed a claim with Apple and their reply was quite shocking and disappointing. Apple basically said that we have contacted the other developer and this process can take a lot time so meanwhile you should try to resolve this issue on your own(I tried but was unable to attach screenshots of this communication). A trillion dollar company and this is their response to a copyrights claim. Highly disappointing. Anyways, after a few weeks the other developer changed their app icon and Apple told us so. So we made another update attempt Yesterday and once again got the design spam rejection. Hello, The issues we previously identified still need your attention. If you have any questions, we are here to help. Reply to this message in App Store Connect and let us know. Guideline 4.3 - Design We noticed your app shares a similar binary, metadata, and/or concept as apps submitted to the App Store by other developers, with only minor differences. We have the urge to compile a list of hundreds of apps on the App Store that do not even make an effort to be unique and simply copy exact designs of other app but we know that any further effort is useless. We have no way forward, so if anyone has any suggestions please do let us know. This post was to inform and educate on the dictatorial behaviour of a trillion dollar company. Thank you for reading.

I want to connect with teams creating and programming tools for platforms for Apple inc developers where they creating models, textures, Riggings, and Animating the model and then I also want to in connect with teams providing a dedicated servicing by live controlling for Lending the Pages and E-drafting the functionality of Operating Systems RUN on Macintosh Platform for Apple Inc. I want them to add me in their group or team as student, I learn more. Thank you Mr. Tanbeer Singh Brar [Personal Information Edited by Moderator]

I recently submitted an app to the App Store which was rejected as spam (Section 4.3). After speaking to an Apple rep, I learned the reason. The app is based on a propietary cross-platform engine which I have been developing for several years. We are not using any third-party software or 'app templates'. A couple of years ago my son and I collaborated on another project - I did the coding using the same engine, but he did the design and content creation. He published it under his own developer account. We worked together on the new app as well. They are both educational apps. The older one is used for learning algebra, and the new one for memorising language vocabulary. They do not look the same and have completely different content. But App's search engines have detected commonality in the code, because much of the underlying engine is the same, and because we are using different developer accounts, has rejected the latest as spam. I wondered if anyone else had encountered this kind of issue, and if there is a way round it? Surely many different developers use common engines (eg Unity) and their apps don't get detected as spam? If I decided to publish my engine as open source on Github, would every developer that used it get rejected as spam? There must be some way to avoid this problem.

Hello friends While everything was normal until last night, my TestFlight versions for all my applications were expired after a version I installed last night, and the newly installed versions are not usable in TestFlight. I get the error "The requested application is unavailable or does not exist". I tried to contact Apple officials, but I did not receive any response. How can I get rid of this error?

Hi everyone, I received this email from apple before 10 days: The information or attachments you provided were not sufficient enough for us to conduct a complete compliance check. To avoid your App Store Connect account from being disabled, provide the information again in a clear and readable format. I try to provide information, but I facing this issue: How can I solve that?

Hello friends While everything was normal until last night, my TestFlight versions for all my applications were expired after a version I installed last night, and the newly installed versions are not usable in TestFlight. I get the error "The requested application is unavailable or does not exist". I tried to contact Apple officials, but I did not receive any response. How can I get rid of this error?

I can't add a new bank account because it states that "The bank identification code you selected does not match the corresponding part of your IBAN." which is totally wrong since it matches. For reference, my bank is CaixaBank and the IBAN has the following pattern (example): ES61 1234 3456 42 0456323532 The 10 last digits is the actual bank account number: 0456323532 However, when I try to add the IBAN (without the empty spaces) and put the 10 digits bank number, it throws an error "The bank identification code you selected does not match the corresponding part of your IBAN." Any help?

I'm an individual developer who is utilising a third-party API to send mobile credit (Airtime) to individuals in a country in Africa. The API i'm working with currently only allows one carrier for me to send airtime through which is MTN (a large telecom in Africa). Our app is designed for Africans living in US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Over the course of the last few weeks my app has continued receiving 5.2.1 violations despite telling Apple that I'm using a third party API and have no affiliations with the carrier. This is the rejection message I receive: "The seller and company names associated with your app do not reflect the mobile carrier name in the app or its metadata, as required by Guideline 5.2.1 of the App Store Review Guidelines." Previously, I had made a mistake of using the MTN logo in a banner on the app homescreen and have since removed it as I thought that was what was causing the violation. Moreover, I had removed my websites logo which was on the Account tab. We currently have a website which still helps users to send airtime and I just wanted to let the users know that this app is owned by us by including our website logo. I removed the MTN logo as I clearly had no rights to use it. Apple suggests the following: "To resolve this issue, your app must be published under a seller name and company name that reflects the mobile carrier name. If you have developed this app on behalf of a client, you may resubmit the app through their account, if they have one. You may also request an update to the company name on your account by having the Team Agent contact Apple Developer Support to request an update to the company name." I don't know if they want me to submit the app as MTN. I have also told them that I own and developed the app and is not for MTN nor am I developing it for a client. We've been going back and forth and I'm not sure what direction to take by this time to get my app released.

Builds in the image had been submitted from yesterday to today, so that it does not been there for more than 1 day. But it expired and could not be downloaded from Testflight app. Image below is when I tried to update app to build number 17 in testflight. This happened few hours ago, and another app I was testing also has been expired and unable to download from testflight app. (I did not changed any settings on this app). What happened and what should I do?

Dear guys, I am planning to take over the application from an organization that has been published in the Store already. Because their organization will be not available anymore (failure), I will take over that application and continue to develop with new updates. Therefore, Could the organization hand over to me all of the accounts, bills, and permissions that I will use later for the release new updated version? I want to continue to develop this app as an individual program. Is it possible? During developing for new version, I want to deactivate the application on Store, and then I will reactivate it when it's done later. Is it possible? Because I want to keep the current users, and data to continue this production. If I'm missing any steps or requirements, please helo to guide me. Thanks you.

Hello, I'm using the Flutter app_tracking_transparency plugin. Encounter a problem when the reviewer doesn't see the App Tracking Transparency request. All test devices work as expected (running on iOS 17.2). I've made some code changes according to this closed thread - https://github.com/deniza/app_tracking_transparency/issues/47 But still rejection. Next, I've added analytics, and see when the reviewer opens the app, the status of ATT is almost instantly set to «decline». This usually happens when a user disables tracking permission in device settings. Is there any chance that the reviewer disabled it?

Hi, I feel like there's been some miscomunnication with the app review team. I have been replying to the rejection and re-submitting and my comments don't seem to be read and I get the same rejection parroted out with not much clue about which action I really need to take as it's quite vague. Does the App Review team reply to the rejection without me having to re-submit? Maybe I'm just not being patient enough or I'm using the submission process wrong.

Question: Does anyone have experience or documentation on how to get an App Clip to show on Apple Maps for a location? What I've tried: I have tried to associate my App Clip with an Apple Maps location. We are working with a physical restaurant that has an Apple Maps location, our full app is listed there but not the App Clip. I've gone through the steps of setting up the Advanced App Clip Experience and giving it the location we want it associated with, and have gone through Apple Business Connect and done all the setup there to get the full app to show with the location, but the app clip still does not show. I've contacted Apple Support and they gave me the criteria of "The App Clip is hosted within the app" and "The app is associated to the same physical location". When asking for clarification with the first criteria they said they could help and closed the chat.

Hi. My app was approved last night and then immediately removed for sale. At exactly the same time. I received an email with all the details saying 'congratulations, your app is now ready for sale' and then immediately afterwards, I received an email advising the status 'your app has been removed for sale'. Is this an Apple error? Has anyone else experienced this?

I have deployed an app on the app store and it got approved. There is a force update feature implemented and it is redirecting to a different link. We then found out that apple provides the correct URL only after doing a production deployment and we had to do a newer deployment with the corrected URL. Will the app update URL be changed be changed again in the future?

Hello everyone, I sent the app for review on the 21 of December - how long might the review take(still WFR)? The app is published, but it's a major update.

I got a waifu - ***** - match 3 games WAIFU BATTLE. Player can peel-off waifu clothes and armor to the certain point in the game. Characters ingame have revealing outfit. How can I manage to put my game on Appstore ?

■About SDK signature Regarding the "Upcoming third-party SDK requirements" announced on December 7th, the method for signing only .XCFramework is described below. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Xcode/verifying-the-origin-of-your-xcframeworks Could you please tell me how to sign for each of the following cases of how to embed a third-party SDK (hereinafter referred to as SDK) in a format other than the above (other than .XCFramework)? Case 1: SDK signature method when the SDK source code itself is embedded in the app itself (Reachability etc.) Case 2: SDK signing method for .framework ■About the description of “Upcoming third-party SDK requirements” in the 12/7 announcement https://developer.apple.com/support/third-party-SDK-requirements/ Does the following sentence on the above page mean ① or ② in the following understanding? English "Signatures are also required in these cases where the listed SDKs are used as binary dependencies." Japanese: "Signing is also required when the SDKs listed below are used as binary dependencies." Understanding 1: SDK signature is required only if the SDK is used as a binary dependency Understanding ②: An SDK signature is required not only when the SDK is binary dependent, but also when using other methods (such as an embedding method where the SDK source code itself is placed) ■How to incorporate privacy manifest for SDK by app developer In the case of SDKs such as AFNetworking and Reachability, whose repositories are frozen and there is currently no hope that a version compatible with manifest files will be released, is it possible to release the application even if the application developer takes the following steps? Countermeasure No. 1: When integrating with Cocoapods, place PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy directly under the Pods/SDK directory Countermeasure 2: Add SDK information to the app's privacy manifest ■About the content you answered last time "Question 3.1: APIs that require a reason / Question 3.2: APIs that require a reason / Question 5: Third party > - About the SDK used in the SDK Since our department does not have this information, please use the forum site below where you can exchange information with developers and our engineers. We have also posted on the forum as shown in the URL below, but we have not received any responses. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/741961 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/743329 If we do not receive a response at this time, our company will be unable to develop and provide services, so would it be possible for you to respond by the end of December?

How do you deal with the ICP number requirement?

Hundreds of fake applications on the appstore: using simple tricks to bypass the review team. These applications include some APIs. When submitting these APIs are turned off so the application looks valid and when the application passes review these APIs are enabled. These APIs check so that if the user is qualified (for example, the IP address is from Vietnam), the application will be updated to illegal content (unlicensed real-money gambling games). Using this simple trick helps these applications easily pass the review team's censorship even if they are reviewed multiple times (because only IP addresses from Vietnam will allow the API to work). Another dangerous thing is that these applications are often made as games for children to easily be approved and last a long time on the appstore like some examples below. https://apps.apple.com/vn/app/which-way-for-the-fish/id6466961369?l=vi https://apps.apple.com/vn/app/s%C4%83n-h%C5%A9/id6447293108?l=vi https://apps.apple.com/vn/app/choihu-cardrealm-victoryquest/id6474621008 https://apps.apple.com/vn/app/choihu-eyeball/id6474282296?l=vi https://apps.apple.com/vn/app/xhu-gyro-spherical/id6473881099?l=vi