App Store clogged with low‑quality AI apps
Apple’s App Store is seeing a surge of low‑quality AI app submissions that have increased review queues — the briefing cites as many as 550k submissions last year and review delays stretching to months. The backlog creates operational headaches for platform governance and developer experience. (x.com)
Appfigures recorded 557,000 new app submissions to Apple’s App Store in 2025, a 24% increase from 2024 and the highest single‑year volume since 2016 (appfigures.com (appfigures.com)). Forbes reported that AI‑assisted developer tools including Cursor, Replit, Bolt and Lovable have lowered the barrier to shipping apps, and described the influx as “AI spam,” citing roughly 550,000 submissions tied to that surge. (forbes.com (forbes.com)). Forbes documented developer accounts of review delays spanning 14–45 days and multiple examples of submissions sitting in “Waiting for Review” for longer than six weeks. (forbes.com (forbes.com)). Apple Developer Forum threads show specific cases where builds submitted on Feb 3 and Feb 14, 2026 remained in “Waiting for Review” into March 2026 despite escalations and approved expedited requests. (developer.apple.com (developer.apple.com)). Runway’s live App Store review‑time tracker and contemporaneous analysis show average and peak review times in January–February 2026 rose above levels recorded in the final four months of 2025, signaling a measurable backlog. (runway.team (runway.team)). Apple’s App Store Transparency Report for 2024 recorded 7,771,599 app submissions reviewed and 1,931,400 rejections, providing baseline scale for moderation ahead of the 2025 submission spike. (9to5mac.com (9to5mac.com)). Forbes, citing Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2026, notes extreme revenue concentration: the top 1% of apps generated 92.2% of in‑app purchase revenue in 2025 — $154 billion versus $13.1 billion for the remaining 99% — which magnifies the cost of processing low‑value submissions. (forbes.com (forbes.com))
