Guideline 4.3 spam rejection: how to show your app is different

4.3(a) is the duplicates, templates, and look-alikes rule. 4.3(b) is the saturated-categories rule. The sentences below are Apple’s wording from the App Store Review Guidelines.

4.3(a): Don’t create multiple Bundle IDs of the same app (for example, submitting a separate map app for every city in the world instead of a single worldwide map that allows users to search any city). This practice results in unnecessary apps, which makes it hard for users to find the apps they want. If your app has different versions for specific locations, sports teams, universities, etc., consider submitting a single app and providing the variations using in-app purchase.

4.3(b): Don’t submit apps that are indistinguishable from what's already widely available. Opportunistically creating variants of existing app categories or popular apps degrades App Store discovery, reduces overall app quality, and harms both users and developers. Certain kinds of apps, such as dating, flashlight, sound effects, wallpaper, simple timers, and fortune telling, are well established on the App Store and we will not accept new submissions unless they offer a meaningfully different or improved experience. We may remove these apps from the App Store going forward if they are not updated, improved, or do not attract customers. Other kinds of apps, such as drinking games, Kama Sutra, fart, and burp apps, are mediocre, low-quality, or low-effort and do not add value to the App Store. Repeated submissions of this kind may lead to removal from the Apple Developer Program.

Apple’s 4.3(a) text is about shipping the same app under more than one Bundle ID. Reviewers also use Guideline 4.3 spam when a template or look-alike is not meaningfully different from an app you, or someone else, already shipped. 4.3(b) is the saturated-category rule: a new dating, flashlight, sound-effects, wallpaper, timer, or fortune-telling app needs a meaningfully different experience, not a new icon on the same idea.

Merge near-duplicate apps into one binary and remove the extras, instead of keeping a separate Bundle ID for each city, team, client, or reskin.

Give this app unique metadata and screenshots: name, subtitle, description, keywords, and images that show this product only.

Cut template UI. Replace generated screens, stock layouts, and shared components that make the app look like the others.

Explain the distinct core feature in the app and in review notes, with the taps a reviewer should follow to see it.

List concrete changes rather than saying the app is different.

Include reviewer notes that guide Apple to the distinct core feature.

Reply within the window stated in Apple’s notice. Explain factually what the message cited, which apps you merged or removed, and what changed in the binary and metadata. Do not miss the date printed in that message.

Guideline 5.6 says a Developer Program account will be terminated for conduct that does not follow the Developer Code of Conduct. Restoration, if Apple offers it, depends on Apple approving a written statement of the improvements you plan to make and then confirming those changes. Nothing on this page promises that the account will be restored.