Apple updated its App Review Guidelines on Oct. 16. Its developer post says the changes strengthen existing protections against nonconsensual intimate imagery and against apps that misrepresent themselves during review.

What changed

  • Guideline 1.2: content moderation requirements now explicitly cover nonconsensual intimate imagery, including imagery generated with AI tools. Apps must proactively prevent and remove it.
  • Guideline 2.5.19: Apple says this clarifies a longstanding ban on apps that show one thing in review and then add features that were not in the submitted version.
  • Section 5: Apple says apps that facilitate human trafficking or the exploitation of children will be removed from the App Store and blocked from alternative distribution.

What it means for users

Apple's post says "nudification" apps, which create sexually explicit images of real people without their consent, were already prohibited. Its example of a bait-and-switch is an app that hides that capability during review and reveals it after approval.

How enforcement works

Developers who lack adequate safeguards, or do not fix violations after notice, risk breaking the Developer Code of Conduct and removal from the App Store. For hidden or changed features, Apple adds removal from the Apple Developer Program.

Apple says it prevented more than 150,000 apps with safety issues from reaching customers last year and terminated more than 193,000 developer accounts for fraud and abuse. Those figures are not broken down by nudification or bait-and-switch apps.

What is not in Apple's post

Apple names no apps and does not say how it will detect an app that changes after approval or how quickly it will act on a report.

MacRumors reports Apple told xAI earlier this year that Grok would be removed if it kept allowing nude deepfakes, and that Apple approved an updated version after xAI added safeguards. Apple does not tie the new rules to any app, and its pages do not mention the xAI exchange.

The Tech Transparency Project's Jan. 27 report said it found 47 such apps on the App Store as of Jan. 21, and that Apple told CNBC it had removed 28 of the apps the group identified. The group counted 27 removals.

In July, 9to5Mac reported that San Francisco's city attorney sent Apple cease-and-desist letters covering eight App Store apps. We have not checked that account against the city's own release.