Apple updated its App Store Review Guidelines in a developer-news post dated 16 October 2026. The page gives no clock. It says apps that generate nudity or sexually explicit imagery were already prohibited, including apps that create sexually explicit images of real people without their consent. Apps that host user-generated content must also filter objectionable material, offer a way to report it, and let users block abusive accounts. Hidden or undocumented features are prohibited too. Revealing a harmful capability only after approval is what the page calls bait-and-switch.

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A closed booklet with a charcoal cover and a blue ribbon
A closed booklet, its cover painted charcoal, with a muted blue ribbon and the edges of the pages showing., AI-generated illustration, not a news photograph

The first change spelled out is guideline 1.2. Content moderation must now cover nonconsensual intimate imagery, including imagery generated with AI tools. Apps must proactively prevent that imagery and remove it. Developers who fail to put adequate safeguards in place, or who do not fix a violation after notice, risk violating the Developer Code of Conduct and removal from the App Store.

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The second change is new guideline 2.5.19. It states an existing prohibition more clearly: misrepresenting what an app does during review and changing it afterward, for example by adding features that were not in the submitted version. Apps found doing this are subject to removal from the App Store and removal from the Apple Developer Program.

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The page also gives last year’s enforcement totals: more than 150,000 apps with safety issues were kept from customers, and more than 193,000 developer accounts were terminated for fraud and abuse. Those are Apple’s own figures for the prior year, not a list of removals on 16 October. The page does not define the counting method, and it does not attribute the totals to this wording change.

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What the page leaves out matters as well. It does not say at what hour or in which time zone the new wording applies, it does not name apps already removed, and it does not define an adequate safeguard. This draft records the duties and consequences the guidelines state. It does not describe how any imagery is produced.

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