Apple has been threatening to clean up the App Store for years. This week, alongside WWDC 2026, the company updated its App Review Guidelines with language that suggests it’s finally going to follow through and developers sitting on stale, low-effort apps should be paying close attention.
The key change is a shift from rejection to removal. The old guidelines warned developers not to submit copycat apps or pile into saturated categories with a famously blunt line noting the App Store already had enough “fart, burp, flashlight, fortune telling, dating, drinking games, and Kama Sutra apps.” Submissions in those categories would be rejected unless they offered something meaningfully different.
The new language goes further. Apple now says it may remove existing apps from the App Store if they are “not updated, improved, or do not attract customers.” That’s a significant escalation. Rejection stops new apps from entering. Removal clears out what’s already there.
The updated list of flagged categories has also expanded. Wallpaper apps, simple timers, and sound effects now join flashlight, fortune-telling, and dating apps on Apple’s list of well-established categories that no longer need more generic entries. Developers submitting to these spaces must offer a “meaningfully different or improved” experience or expect their submissions to decline. Existing apps in these categories that aren’t updated or downloaded risk being pulled entirely.
Apple also escalated the consequences for repeat offenders. Developers who repeatedly submit low-quality, mediocre, or low-effort apps risk losing access to the Apple Developer Program entirely. That’s a ban, not just a rejection.
The timing makes sense. WWDC 2026 also introduced personalized App Store recommendations and new merchandising tools designed to help quality developers get discovered. Clearing out clutter directly improves that discovery experience; fewer irrelevant results means more visibility for apps that actually earned it.
Apple says its existing App Store Improvements process gives developers advance notice when their apps are underperforming, so there’s an opportunity to fix things before removal becomes a reality.
If you’re a developer with an app that hasn’t been updated in years and isn’t getting downloads check your App Store dashboard now. Apple just made the warning official.
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