Hello Apple Developer Community, I hope this message finds you well. My app submission was recently rejected under Guideline 4.3(a) due to the App Review Team's determination that my app shares similarities in binary, metadata, and concept with apps submitted by other developers, with only minor differences. The feedback I received stated: "We still found that your app shares a similar binary, metadata, and concept as apps submitted to the App Store by other developers, with only minor differences. Since we do not accept spam apps on the App Store, we encourage you to review your app concept and submit a unique app with distinct content and functionality." I have already made significant efforts to differentiate my app by implementing unique features and functionality tailored to my audience. However, I’d like to better understand: What specific aspects of my app might be contributing to the similarity concerns? How can I further highlight the unique features and functionality of my app to meet Apple's expectations? Are there any tools or resources to validate that my app concept is distinct enough from others? If anyone has faced a similar rejection or has advice on how to navigate this, I would greatly appreciate your guidance. Additionally, I am hopeful that the Apple App Review Team might consider contacting me by phone to discuss my app in detail, as I believe a direct conversation could help clarify any misunderstandings and expedite the resolution process. Thank you for your time and support! Best regards, Bryan

I have released the faulty app version to user then I released another one for the hotfix at the same date after the faulty one 6 hours. However, today is the third day from the last release, the faulty version is still getting rolled out automatically to user. I supposed only the latest one can be rolled out user. Any thought please!

Hello, i have built an app in Unity, the first app I’ve attempted to submit to the App Store. It is a unique app that links to our web shop. Each time the submission is rejected due to “Guideline 4.3(a) - Design - Spam” with some generic info: “We noticed your app shares a similar binary, metadata, and/or concept as apps previously submitted by a terminated Apple Developer Program account. Submitting similar or repackaged apps is a form of spam that creates clutter and makes it difficult for users to discover new apps.” Quite bizarre since this is the first time submitting the app! Nobody ever responds to emails to give further information, frustrating considering you pay £79 for this service…

For more than a month we have been waiting for approval to have the local government mobile application in the App store. Its purpose is to facilitate the residents' environment and connection with government institutions, but we cannot continue the development work.

I finally got ASA Basic to spend a little. After months of nothing. Maybe my max was too low but it was always higher than the average I am seeing. Then when the update occurred that announced the addition of other countries, I selected all those. I noticed they were all flagged with an error and I also didn't get any new installs. So I deselected all those such that the error flags were gone. But days have gone by and not one new install attributed to Basic. Any ideas?

Can multiple apps with different bundle IDs under the same development team be sold on the AppStore using the same App icon? My company has multiple apps, and we expect to be able to use the same company logo as the App icon on multiple apps to facilitate the management of the company's apps.

I'm running into issues creating a valid .pkg file for Transporter.app. I'm building an Electron app for the Mac App Store. I have a working build that's live, but I've encountered issues on x86 architectures. The delivery process fails with the following error: Asset validation failed (90981) Invalid bundle. The “com.XXXX.***.pkg/Payload/XXXX.app” bundle supports arm64 but not Intel-based Mac computers. Your build must include the x86_64 architecture to support Intel-based Mac computers. For details, view: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/building_a_universal_macos_binary. (ID: 56e46e1a-6e77-4468-80e6-249ec8990fa8) My build script that creates the .app and code signs the application uses the productbuild utility to create the .pkg. This is the command: productbuild --sign "$INSTALLER_KEY" --product "./build/requirements.plist" --component "$APP_PATH" /Applications "$RESULT_PATH" From my research, I would have assumed that the requirements property list was all that I would need to specify for the .pkg. This is this contents of /build/requirements.plist/: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>arch</key> <array> <string>arm64</string> </array> </dict> </plist> The application included in the .pkg is correctly built for arm64 and I've verified this with: lipo -archs /Path/To/XXXX.app/Contents/MacOS/XXXX arm64 Other research ha led me to solutions via Xcode, but as stated at the beginning I'm using Electron. Any suggestions or insights would be very beneficial.

Apple 403 detected - Access forbidden. This request is forbidden for security reasons - The API key in use does not allow this request Error: submit command failed. this is the result from EAS expo when i am trying to submit the app build. according to my research its a bug of apple and must report it here in apple forum

Our App Clips have been approved for about a week. However, our App Clips are not loading or previewing in iMessage. My friend and I both have an iPhone with iOS 18. Our App Clip minimum target is iOS 17. For both of us, the App Clip previews aren't loading in iMessage (see image below). But this isn't right—App Clips generally SHOULD preview in iMessage. For reference, when I send my friend an Instagram post URL, the app clip DOES load & preview in iMessage—suggesting it's just an issue with 222's App Clips. In the iMessage screenshot... the top url is https://rsvp.222.place/?id=0034d4c8-7dcd-44bf-89df-6dc1acd806d2 The bottom url is https://appclip.apple.com/id?p=place.twotwotwo.twotwotwo-ios.Clip (default App Clip Link) When I run either of these URLs in App Clip Diagnostics in Settings -> Developer, both of them are marked as approved and ready to go.

Hey guys. I got this message from reviewer: Guideline 2.3.6 - Performance - Accurate Metadata The app includes AI-generated content but does not appear to include content filtering at this time. Since the app may produce content not appropriate for all audiences, it would be appropriate to revise the app's age rating to 17+ in App Store Connect or implement content filtering. Next Steps There are two ways to resolve this issue: You may update your Age Ratings selections to 17+ in App Store Connect. This can be done by selecting "Restrict to 17+" when editing the app's Age Rating. Or you may implement content filtering so that all generated content is appropriate for the app's current age rating. The services I am using already has a content filtering implemented in them. I have no idea what am I supposed to do.

Hi, this is my app: https://macsyzones.com Here, a video that demonstrates my app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jNx3ZUD8Rw It's a very cute window management app with unique features. It needs Accessibility Permission but App Store requires App Sandbox enabled which makes to request Accessibility Permission impossible. How can I submit my app without App Sandbox enabled to Apple? Apple can review the code and build it themselves? There are apps that uses Accessibility Permissions on App Store as I can see. Hope you help to have my app on App Store, it will be very good. 😇 I hope you'll give my app a place on App Store. 🥳 Thank you.

I can’t submit an App Update without providing the EU trader information. I keep trying to submit this information. I upload all the documents, go through all the steps, then at the end I get the following error message: “Something went wrong. Please try again.” This is pretty frustrating. Then I had to start over...did it all again and ended up with the exact same error message. So I'm blocked from updating an app today...any advice on how I should proceed?

I have an iOS app compatible with WatchOS but I cannot get metrics specific to WatchOS in Analytics, I can only see results by following device types : iphone, ipad, desktop, appleTV, appleVision, ipod. Is there any way to get this information on App Store Connect?

Hello, I am interested in TCG cards and decided to create an app. I developed an app related to Pokémon cards that provides brief information about the cards, allows users to scan their cards with AI, and includes a Portfolio page where users can view their own cards. However, the app was rejected with the reason "4.1.0 Design: Copycats" from the review team. After this, I reviewed published apps and added a disclaimer to the description, but my issue still persists. The most recent response from the review team was essentially as follows: "You need to remove elements from your app's metadata, such as names and screenshots, that may infringe on brand usage." However, it is not feasible for me to present the purpose of the app without these elements. Pokémon does not grant licensing for such use, and my intention was not to compete with Pokémon but to create a simple, user-friendly app for Pokémon fans. If anyone with experience in this matter could provide assistance, I would greatly appreciate it.

I would like to get number of new users by month for my app. The description of "First Time Downloads" metric is : "The total number of first times an app is downloaded per Apple Account; Counted when an app is downloaded from the App Store after a user taps the "Buy" or "Get" button." https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/app-metrics/ So, the first sentence says metric is per Apple account, so by Apple user. But the second sentence says metric is per device... My question is : does metric "First Time Downloads" get number of new users or new devices? if it is new devices, how can I retrieve number of new users (independently of opt-in or not)?

Hi I implemented the smart app banner like this: The banner shows up, but without the rating. My guess is because there are other versions of the app in different region app stores (but same app-id) with not enough ratings? Is Apple checking for a language or country-code on the website to get the correct rating for the app? For example: App on swiss store has about >8k ratings on us store it has <20 ratings on german store about 150 ratings

Hello, The IAPs we added about 5 days ago are stuck at the “In Review” stage. No matter how many e-mails we send, the problem is not solved because it is not answered. We sent the first mail 4 days ago. What do you recommend us to do?

Hello, I am currently encountering an issue while using the server-side API for in-app purchase integration. Suppose a user has already purchased a product, and the App Store returns a transactionId of 1. After some time, the user repeats the purchase for some reason, and the App Store returns a transactionId of 2. However, when I use the Get Transaction History interface to query the transaction information for transactionId 2, I see that the data returned by the App Store does not include the transaction data for transactionId 2; it only contains the transaction data for transactionId 1. In this situation, my guess is that when the user makes a repeat purchase, the App Store recognizes that the user has already purchased the item and has not executed a refund. Therefore, the App Store generates a new transactionId for this request (the user's purchase) and associates it with the previous purchase's transaction data. This is my inference. If this user has made 5 repeat purchases, when the user successfully requests a refund, if I query the transaction information through the Get Transaction History interface, will the revocationDate for all 5 transactions in the App Store's official database be modified to the same date? Additionally, after the user successfully refunds and makes another purchase, will the new transactionId still be associated with the previous transaction data?

I have an app that I've been using for over 10 years now. When I searched for that app on the App Store, it didn't show up. (both in the US, Japan, and Korean stores) There's a phenomenon where the app crashes and dies when performing a specific function. So I'm trying to develop an app that's very similar to that app. When I migrate or restore after changing or initializing my device, the previously installed app is installed on the home screen. There are several apps that don't show up on the App Store and seem to have been removed by the developer. Some apps have a blank icon image on the home screen, and when you click on them, a pop-up appears saying that they can't be installed and asks if you want to delete the icon. Some apps are still installed. Some functions are broken because the developer stopped maintaining them for a long time. They can't be searched on the store either. What are the differences and similarities between these two apps?

We are a team of beginner developers, and we recently published our game (made in Unity) on the App Store for both macOS and iOS. It was live for about 15 days until three days ago, when we received a notice from Apple that our account had been flagged for removal. The email mentioned that our game violates section 3.2(f) of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement. We've been trying to identify the issue since then, but we're not involved in any fraudulent activities. Any guidance on how to resolve this would be a huge help. Thanks.