How app stores decide what you can install

App stores are gates with rulebooks. Apple and Google publish the rules, and a review team checks each submission against them before anyone can install the app. A submission that breaks a rule is rejected at the door, and an app that slips through can be pulled later. The gate is not symbolic: Apple rejected more than 2 million app submissions in 2025. The scale is on record. Apple's App Store Transparency Report for 2025 lists 9,100,620 submissions reviewed and 2,093,244 rejected, alongside 166,899 apps removed from the store outright, per Apple's 2025 transparency report. Google runs its own book of rules for Google Play, with an enforcement process and an appeals path behind it. What follows is app store policies explained for the people on the far side of the install button. The rulebook both stores publish Apple arranges its App Review Guidelines into five sections: Safety, Performance, Business, Design, and Legal. The introduction states the principle plainly.

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