The company said that last year it removed nearly 59,000 apps for bait-and-switch tactics [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
Even as advancements in AI and other tools have made it easy to create new apps, Apple said that it rejected over 2 million app submissions last year for failing to comply with its guidelines.Apple shared more details about its app vetting process in a blog post, highlighting that it stopped more than $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2025.On a more positive note, however, the iPhone-maker’s App Review team evaluated more than 9.1 million app submissions. This brought over 306,000 new developers to the platform, per its report.Concerning the rejected app submissions, Apple said that over 1.2 million new apps and nearly 800,000 app updates did not adhere to its App Review Guidelines.Apple also flagged the prevalence of bait-and-switch tactics used by malicious app developers, where apps that were approved as games or useful tools changed their software after their review, in order to carry out financial fraud.Apple explained that it used a combination of human expertise and machine learning in order to weed out bad actors by identifying malicious patterns.The company said that last year it removed nearly 59,000 apps for such tactics, apart from rejecting more than 22,000 submissions over hidden or undocumented features, rejecting more than 371,000 submissions for app plagiarism or misleading and spamming users, and rejecting more than 443,000 submissions over privacy violations.“By utilising AI to rapidly identify complex malicious patterns, analyse app similarity, and flag potentially problematic changes in app updates, Apple’s systems help human reviewers focus their expertise where it matters most. This not only improves the customer experience by ensuring a high-quality, curated storefront, it also helps legitimate developers get their great apps and updates to users faster,” stated the iPhone-maker. Published - May 22, 2026 03:00 pm IST
