It’s a rare sunny day outside. The temperature in Shanghai is just over 12 degrees today, and spring clouds are always pitifully scarce. While making coffee just now, I came across a piece of news from foreign media that instantly woke me up: Apple has recently quietly blocked App Store update reviews for Vibe Coding apps like Replit and Vibecode.
The Chokehold Excuse Sounds Very Familiar
A rather frustrating detail was mentioned in a report by The Information. Ever since its last update was blocked in January, Replit’s mobile app has brutally dropped from first to third place on Apple’s free developer tools chart.
The reason Apple provided is quite official: the infamous App Store Review Guideline 2.5.2. This rule is an old acquaintance. Simply put: Apps must be self-contained and may not download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app itself or other apps.
To put it bluntly, using natural language to “Vibe” a mini-program within the app and then running it directly inside an embedded Web View touches Apple’s reverse scale. Apple’s stance is clear: if you want to pass the review, throw your generated apps into an external browser (like Safari) to open them; don’t run them within your own app. As for Vibecode, the review team’s demand was even more ruthless—completely remove the feature that generates specific software for Apple devices.
I chatted about this with a few indie developer friends yesterday. Everyone’s first reaction was a sigh. This disruption of the interactive flow directly destroys the most fascinating aspect of Vibe Coding: the magical feeling of “I say a sentence, and the next second it runs right in my hands.”
I’ve seen polarized comments on forums before. A user named anshuvorty thought Apple did a great job, arguing that everyone should honestly learn to code instead of constantly churning out machine-generated “cyber trash.” But the words of another netizen, Unregistered 4U, probably hit the pain point better: the current software environment is too hostile to users, filled with consumption traps and useless push notifications everywhere. If you can simply describe your needs and your phone directly generates a clean, disposable, use-and-discard tool for you, what’s wrong with that?
Fine for Apple, Forbidden for Others
Actually, the most intriguing part of this isn’t what Apple has banned, but what it is simultaneously supporting.
Let’s push the timeline forward a bit. Just last month, Apple released the RC version of Xcode 26.3. The biggest selling point of this release is the direct integration of Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s Codex into Xcode, which the officials grandiosely call “Agentic Coding.”
I ran this new version of Xcode on the Mac Studio in my workspace a few days ago, and it left a deep impression. Not only can it automatically write code and modify project configurations, but it can even take screenshots to capture Xcode Previews, visually verify the rendering effects of SwiftUI interfaces, and iterate automatically.
This is very interesting. On one hand, you crazily integrate Large Language Models into your own brain-child Xcode, encouraging developers to collaborate with Agents using natural language to generate apps. On the other hand, you turn around and, under the guise of security and compliance, brutally suppress third-party apps like Replit that try to allow ordinary people to create small tools on their phones with zero barriers. Isn’t this actually the highest, most official form of Vibe Coding?
Apple spokespeople will, of course, say they aren’t targeting Vibe Coding and are merely protecting user security. But if you savor it carefully, the underlying logic is crystal clear. Vibe Coding apps are essentially creating an “app store that doesn’t need the App Store.” If anyone can use a few sentences in Replit to mold a calculator, a ledger, or even a mini-game to solve a specific problem, and use it immediately, who would still go to the App Store to download those bloated apps full of in-app purchases? What’s more fatal is that Apple wouldn’t even be able to collect its 30% commission anymore.
To Put It Bluntly, It’s Time for the Rules to Move On
Comparing these two approaches side-by-side, you’ll find an enormous gap in barriers to entry.
If you want to use Apple’s official “Agentic Coding,” the prerequisite is that you must own a Mac. Even though Apple just released the entry-level $599 MacBook Neo this month, combined with various developer account registrations and the download of a multi-gigabyte Xcode environment, this still remains a towering mountain for a non-technical person who merely wants to solve a small problem at hand.
And what about Replit? While commuting on the subway, you pull out your phone, type a few lines of text, and a lightweight Web App is up and running. This is exactly why it has sent programming novices into a frenzy over the past few months.
To be honest, Rule 2.5.2 was born in an era when apps were static binary files. Back then, banning apps from dynamically downloading and executing code was genuinely meant to prevent security risks like viruses and hot updates bypassing review. But today’s technological reality is that the form of software is becoming extremely dynamic. A Prompt generates a temporary piece of JS code, it runs in a sandboxed Web View, and gets destroyed immediately after.
Does this behavior really count as “changing the primary purpose of the app” as written in Apple Developer Agreement 3.3.1(B)? Applying this to a platform tool that champions “creating everything” is simply a dead end.
Facing this kind of technological evolution, forcefully applying a decade-old set of rules is like using the excuse of checking for illegal structures to ban someone from pitching a tent in a public square. If Apple really cared about security, they could entirely design a dedicated permission sandbox for this kind of lightweight code execution, limiting its system call level, rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach and driving people to external browsers.
Some Things I Think About Sometimes
Following this logic, I sometimes think that the operating systems of the future might not need the concept of an “App” at all.
You type “I want a five-minute countdown” on the screen, and the system temporarily generates a countdown interface with beautiful animations; you snap a picture of a receipt and say “help me record this expense,” and the system draws up a data table on the spot. Used, vanished, taking up no storage, popping up no notifications.
But this vision is exactly what hardware giants find hardest to accept. The entire existing mobile internet business empire is built on the chain of “Download App – Retention – Engagement – Monetization.” Once the front-end becomes disposable dynamic code, those distribution channels collecting toll fees will be completely invalidated.
As an aside, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman recently leaked that the upcoming iOS 27 will be like the Mac OS X Snow Leopard of its time, focusing on “zero new features” and putting all efforts into fixing bugs and improving stability. At this juncture, with Apple tightening the fences at the system’s core while blocking third-party dynamic app generation tools, it always feels like they are building an even higher wall.
Or maybe I’m overthinking it. After all, for the vast majority of people, spending money on a new pair of AirPods Max 2 with the H2 chip, listening to noise-canceling music while scrolling through short videos, is far more pleasant than trying to “Vibe” a rather unaesthetic small tool themselves. Perhaps people inherently reject the idea of understanding technical details.
The coffee in my cup has gone completely cold. Having said so much, I don’t really have a specific conclusion.
References:
- Apple Quietly Blocks Updates for Popular ‘Vibe Coding’ Apps
- Apple pushing back on ‘vibe coding’ iPhone apps, developers say
- Xcode 26.3 Brings Integrated Agentic Coding for Anthropic Claude
- Apple integrates Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s Codex into Xcode
—— Lyra Celest @ Turbulence τ.
