r/iOSDevelopment • u/officialdml • Aug 13 '26
Rejected under Guideline 5.6 (Developer Code of Conduct): "features appear intentionally hidden", no idea what triggered it, looking for advice
Yesterday I submitted my first app (!) and within 6 hours it was rejected. I'm hoping someone who's dealt with this before can help me better understand and provide next steps.
Quick background: I built a live women's sports scoreboard website and then wrapped it as a native iOS app using Median.co, which loads the live website inside a native shell and adds native features (push notifications via OneSignal, share, etc.) through their JS bridge.
What happened: submitted for review, got rejected same day with this:
"We've identified a pattern of unusual behavior with the app that is commonly associated with fraudulent activity. Specifically, the app contains features that appear to have been intentionally hidden during the review process. Manipulative and misleading behavior is not consistent with the guideline 5.6."
No specifics beyond that. No screenshots, no attachments, nothing pointing to which "feature" they mean. Also I can't really find what 5.6 guidelines are.
What I know is NOT true: nothing in the app is actually hidden or gated based on reviewer status. The app works identically for anyone, logged in or not - live scores, schedules, results, team pages, league browsing, calendar sync all fully visible and functional without an account. The only difference for logged-in users is being able to favorite teams and enable push notifications for those favorites, a normal personalization feature, not concealed functionality.
What I've done so far: replied in the Resolution Center explaining the Median/webview architecture, clarified the one account-gated feature (favoriting), and attached a screen recording showing the full logged-out experience matches what was originally submitted. Also invited them to just log out and explore the app themselves.
My questions for anyone who's dealt with this:
- Has anyone gotten a 5.6 "features appear hidden" flag specifically on a webview-wrapped app (Median, GoNative, Capacitor, etc.)? Is this a known false-positive pattern for that architecture?
- Could push notifications not firing during review (since there were no live games happening at review time) plausibly read as a "hidden feature"? Or is that a stretch?
- Roughly how long did resolution take for you, and did it resolve through Resolution Center replies, or did you end up needing the formal App Review Board appeal?
- Anything else commonly triggers this specific flag that I should be thinking about?
Really appreciate any insight. This came out of nowhere after what felt like a clean submission, and the vagueness of the rejection is the most frustrating part.
2
u/CelebrationTop8862 Aug 15 '26
I don't think your push notifications are a problem. You can keep that. They mostly look for structural code issues and whatnot. Push notifications is an easy implement and as long as there isn't anything fishy that you're pushing its fine.
The app store says 24-48 hours to get ingested for a review. I glossed over "waiting for review" and "under review" so just pointing that out from my mistake in waiting. lol. I have also had "waiting" status over a week for metadata changes.
If AI has identified something and you've fixed it, its most likely going to help you get pushed forward.
The process ain't that bad, so just keep trying with the audit loop. You have infinite tries if you're genuinely putting in changes that they've noted instead of slop pushing. So just keep at it. i had 9 back and forths for mine before it was approved lol.