Apple has stopped updates for several AI‑coding tools after invoking App Store Review Guideline 2.5.2, which forbids apps from executing code that alters functionality at runtime. Since January, Replit’s iOS client has remained on a single version, slipping from first to third place in the free developer‑tools chart. The enforcement also hit Vibecode and a newer app called Anything.

Apple told Replit that moving generated app previews out of the embedded web view and opening them in Safari would satisfy the rule, without banning code generation itself. Anything’s co‑founder Dhruv Amin spent three months filing four technical rewrites that routed previews through an external browser, only to see the update denied and the existing build pulled from the store.

The clash exposes a deeper tension: Apple’s review process assumes a fixed binary can be inspected, while AI‑driven tools produce code on the fly, blurring the line between wrapper and payload. OpenAI’s ChatGPT app directory already hosts dynamic capabilities that run inside the same iOS environment, proving a competing model can coexist. Apple’s strict stance forces developers to choose between static distribution and adaptive code generation.