The explosion in software built with generative coding tools is beginning to expose a new pressure point in Apple’s tightly controlled ecosystem: getting apps through the App Store may now be taking longer than building them.
A sharp rise in new iOS app submissions, driven by the mainstream adoption of prompt-based development tools since 2025, is fueling complaints from developers over longer review queues and stricter scrutiny, even as Apple insists the overwhelming majority of apps are still cleared within two days.
According to data from Sensor Tower cited by Business Insider, the number of iOS apps released in the United States rose 54.8 percent year-on-year in January, after a 56 percent jump in December, marking the fastest pace of growth in four years.
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The surge underscores how dramatically the economics of app creation have shifted. What once required teams of developers, weeks of engineering work, and significant capital can now, in many cases, be prototyped in hours by solo creators and non-technical founders using conversational coding tools.
But that acceleration on the front end is colliding with a human-led review process on the back end.
Developers say the approval queue has become the new choke point.
James Steinberg, a New York-based app developer, said one of his applications has been waiting roughly six weeks to go live, while updates now take anywhere from several days to a week.
“The slowest thing is now the Apple store not making the app, not marketing,” Steinberg said. “Yeah, it’s pretty wild.”
His experience mirrors growing complaints across developer forums, where multiple users report apps lingering in the “Waiting for Review” stage for weeks, well beyond Apple’s publicly stated timelines.
That frustration is being compounded by inconsistency. Some developers report one app clearing within 48 hours while another sits idle for weeks, suggesting a queue that is becoming increasingly unpredictable.
Apple, for its part, rejects the notion of a systemic breakdown. The company says 90 percent of submissions are reviewed within 48 hours and that it has processed more than 200,000 app submissions each week over the past 12 weeks, with an average review time of 1.5 days.
Yet the emerging tension appears to go beyond sheer volume. Recent reports indicate Apple has quietly blocked updates for popular no-code and prompt-driven app creation platforms such as Replit and Vibecode, citing long-standing App Store rules that prohibit apps from downloading or executing code that materially changes their functionality after approval.
That development points to a deeper issue at the heart of Apple’s response: the company is not only dealing with more submissions, it is also confronting a category of apps that challenges the architecture of its review rules.
App Store guideline 2.5.2, which bars apps from installing or running code that alters features after they have been reviewed, has found itself at the center of the dispute. For prompt-based app builders, that rule strikes at a core capability, allowing users to generate and preview functioning software in real time.
This creates a dilemma for Apple. These tools are expanding the developer base, opening software creation to freelancers, entrepreneurs, and hobbyists who may never have written code before. They also raise concerns about security, spam, duplication, and low-quality applications flooding the store.
For developers with legitimate products, the fear is that the crackdown may be sweeping too broadly.
Posts across Reddit’s iOS development communities suggest some long-established apps are now facing repeated rejections, “spam” designations, or warnings that they no longer meet Apple’s minimum quality threshold.
Industry analysts say Apple’s current gatekeeping model may be reaching its limits.
Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee noted that stricter reviews may help reduce the volume of low-grade submissions in the short term, but warned that this is not a problem Apple can solve through rejections alone.
“This is not a problem Apple can reject its way out of; as AI accelerates app creation, the company will have to evolve from artisanal gatekeeping to curation at scale,” Chatterjee told Business Insider.
The issue is no longer simply about slower approvals. It is about whether Apple’s curation model, built for an era of conventional software development, can scale for a world where apps can be generated at industrial speed.
As the barriers to building software continue to collapse, the pressure is shifting to distribution platforms. For Apple, the challenge is now less about policing code and more about redesigning a review infrastructure capable of handling a new era of mass app creation without compromising quality, security, or user trust.
The App Store, long seen as Apple’s most tightly managed gateway, is now facing one of its biggest operational tests in years.