Guideline 4.2.6 templates and app generation services, in plain English

What Guideline 4.2.6 means

The rule targets a familiar pattern: an agency or builder that turns out near-identical apps for many businesses, and submits them all itself. Apple wants the business behind the content to be the one submitting, from its own Apple Developer Program account.

Apple describes what it wants from these services instead: tools that let clients create customized, innovative apps with unique experiences. For template makers, Apple offers one acceptable alternative: a single app hosting every client's content in a picker, like a restaurant finder with a page per restaurant or an event app with an entry per event.

4.2.6 overlaps with 4.3 Spam, which turns down apps that are essentially the same as others, and with 4.2, which asks every app to be useful on its own. An app from a builder passes the same way any app does: by being a real, distinct app from the person or company it belongs to.

Why apps are turned down under Guideline 4.2.6

• The app was submitted by a service, not by the content's owner

  An agency or builder published it under its own developer account on behalf of the business whose content it shows.

• The app looks like a template with new content

  Screens, features and structure match other apps from the same template, with only the name, colours and logo changed.

• Several clients' apps are the same app

  Separate submissions for each business where one app with a page per client would do.

How to fix it and resubmit

1. Make sure the app is published from the Apple Developer Program account of the person or business it belongs to, not the builder's or agency's.
2. Give the app features and screens that fit its owner, not only a new name and colours on a common template.
3. If you run apps for many clients, consider Apple's alternative: one app with a picker and an entry or page for each client.
4. In the review notes, say who provides the content and what the app does that's specific to them.
5. Upload the new build from the right account and resubmit.

How Borel helps

With Borel you publish from your own Apple Developer Program membership: Borel builds the app on its Mac, signs it with your App Store Connect key and uploads it to your App Store Connect account. Borel never submits apps under an account of its own, so the app goes to Apple from its owner, as 4.2.6 asks.

Borel isn't a fixed template. Each app is written in Swift from your own description, with the screens, data and features you ask for, and you keep changing it in plain words. Apple still judges whether the result is useful and distinct, so make it yours.

Questions people ask

Related guidelines

• Guideline 4.2Minimum Functionality
• Guideline 4.3Spam
• Guideline 5.6Developer Code of Conduct