Apple’s App Store review queue seems to be jammed. The Register points to a growing pile of developer forum posts with titles like “Unusually long ‘waiting for review’ time,” “Stuck in Waiting for Review for about 3 weeks” and “Stuck in ‘Waiting for Review’ since October 8,” plus a “Waiting for Review Megathread.”
What’s going on
- Typical review takes a day or two. Apple’s own guidelines say App Review works around the clock and typically reviews at least 50% of submissions in under 24 hours and 90% in under 48 hours.
- One developer reports waiting since September 19, and Reddit users describe apps waiting almost a month.
- It isn’t new. A similar thread from February still shows at least 74 developers complaining of multi-week delays, some of them for bug fixes to already approved apps.
- In March, Business Insider suggested the cause was a large and rising influx of AI-coded apps. In April, The Information reported submissions were up 84 percent.
- The Register asked Apple for an explanation and hadn’t heard back yet.
My take
If you ship iOS apps, build in extra time before any launch date and don’t promise anything to a customer around a review. The AI-coded-app flood is a plausible explanation that others have reported, but nobody at Apple has confirmed it. If the review lane is getting clogged, small indie fixes are going to feel it first.
Have a blessed day! And Happy Hacking!
