Apple Rejected Over 1.6 Million App Store Submissions Last Year

Apple rejected a total of 1,679,694 App Store submissions in 2022, according to a transparency report(Opens in a new window) published by the tech giant. 

The report, the first of its kind, provides a revealing glimpse into the App Store submission reviewing process, and offers details on interesting tidbits such as app removals and appeals, developer account terminations, government requests for app takedowns. 

Among the most immediate takeaways from the report is the fact that, as of 2022, there were 1,783,232 apps on the App Store.

Apple also revealed in the report that it reviewed 6,101,913 submissions last year and removed 186,195 apps from the App Store.

More than one million didn’t get accepted for the App Store as they did not comply with Apple’s performance guidelines, while the company also rejected 441,972 submissions on legal grounds.

As the report describes, the company fielded 1,474 takedown requests last year, with 1,435 originating from mainland China, while India came a distant second, with just 14 takedown requests. 

As 9to5Mac reports(Opens in a new window), Apple agreed to release the report and publish more details on App Store transparency as part of its settlement with a group of developers in 2021. A group of Apple shareholders additionally voted for the company to publish more App Store data in January.

At the time, the company said(Opens in a new window) the reports would “share meaningful statistics about the app review process, including the number of apps rejected for different reasons, the number of customer and developer accounts deactivated, objective data regarding search queries and results, and the number of apps removed from the App Store.”

Chance Miller from 9to5Mac notes that the report appears to go “above and beyond” what was required in those shareholder and settlement agreements.