New to this? Read it in simple words
- Apple changed the rules that every iPhone app must follow.
- Apps where people make or share content, including AI apps, must stop sexual images made without consent.
- Apps that hide features from Apple’s review can be removed, and their makers banned.
- Apps that help exploit children will be removed and blocked from other ways to install them.
- Nudify app
- An app that uses AI to make fake nude images of real people from normal photos.
- Nonconsensual intimate imagery
- Sexual or nude images of a person shared or made without that person’s permission.
- Code obfuscation
- Making an app’s code hard to read, which can hide what the app really does.
Every iPhone app must pass Apple’s App Review before it reaches the App Store. On October 16, Apple published a new version of the rules that reviewers use, with changes aimed at sexual images made without consent.
Rule 1.2 now covers AI apps
Rule 1.2 used to cover apps with user-generated content. It now covers apps that let people “create, generate, upload, share, or otherwise contribute content”, and it names social media and AI content creation apps.
The rule now lists nonconsensual intimate imagery among the problems such apps bring, next to copyright abuse and anonymous bullying. As before, these apps must filter content, let users report and block others, and give contact details.
A new sentence says that developers who fail to put safeguards in place, or to fix problems after a warning, may be breaking Apple’s Developer Code of Conduct.
From Apple’s guidelines and its developer news posts of October 16, compared with the earlier version.
Hidden features can end an account
The new rule 2.5.19 bans hidden, dormant or undocumented features. That sentence moved from an older rule. The new part says that trying to hide such features, for example through code obfuscation, is grounds for removing the app and ending the developer’s account.
Apple says some apps describe themselves falsely during review and only show harmful features, such as “nudification”, after approval. It calls this “bait-and-switch”.
Apps that exploit children
Apple already notified the authorities about apps found to help human trafficking or the exploitation of children. The rules now add that these apps will be removed from the App Store and blocked from other ways of distribution.
Why it matters now
In January, the watchdog Tech Transparency Project found 47 nudify apps in Apple’s App Store and 55 in Google Play. These apps use AI to make fake nude images of real people.
Apple’s post names no app or company. It says nudify apps have long been banned, and that the update makes the rules clearer and stronger.
Sources
Every fact in this story comes from the sources below. Open them to check our work.
- 1Primary source · October 16, 2026Strengthening App Review Guidelines against nonconsensual intimate imagery and bait-and-switch apps Apple
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- 4Research · October 16, 2026Apple’s new App Store rules crack down on AI nudification and ‘bait-and-switch’ apps 9to5Mac
- 5
- 6
- 7Research · January 2026Nudify Apps Widely Available in Apple and Google App Stores Tech Transparency Project
The rule changes are quoted from Apple’s guidelines, compared with the version before October 16. The word “nudification” and the “bait-and-switch” account are from Apple’s post, not the rules themselves.
Apple’s tougher rules target AI nudify apps and child exploitation, but mostly tighten bans that already existed. How we rate the mood