Apple Pulls Vibe Coding App 'Anything' From App Store, Escalating Enforcement [Updated]

[ikramerica]

When you buy a home, you can put any furniture in it you like, remodel its interior however you like, and so on. You don't have to have architected it for it to be your own home.

You can’t expand your home without getting approvals and inspections.

You can’t expand your app without approvals and inspection.

Your point is?

 

[ForkHandles]

Account vacated.

 

[techfreak23]

As much as I've tried vibe coding it always makes mistakes and the code is not secure at all. You have to correct it by yourself either way.

That’s been my problem with this “vibe coding” trend and having full shipping products built this way. It’s one thing to get a starting point then verify and correct it. That requires enough coding knowledge and experience to do that, of course. It annoys me that these platforms advertise needing no coding experience whatsoever to build something.

 

[steviewondercansee]

Again, Apple is selling these for profit not at a loss. There should be no expectation for them to get any further revenue from you once they sell you the device.

Well then there should be no expectation for you to get anymore software updates after they sold you the device. No expectation of new features after you buy the device.

Yet they provide that.

 

[steviewondercansee]

When you buy a home, you can put any furniture in it you like, remodel its interior however you like, and so on. You don't have to have architected it for it to be your own home.

nope.

I bought my house and tried to remodel the garage. However, since it's an old house, the garage was built too close to the fence (which was fine at the time). Since then, the law has changed and requires any wall to be at least 5 feet away from side property lines. If the interior remodel exceeds 50% of its value, then I cannot remodel the interior however I like, needs to get approval by the city. This is for the sake of fire safety.

Similarly, if the "interior" of the app (house) changes the functionality after you bought the app, that functionality needs to be approved by Apple (the city) for the sake of safety.

Analogy works.

 

[Piggie]

To people who think Vibe Coding should be banned.

Should artists paints be banned as they well paint, and there are some amazing users who create amazing art with paints, and there are others who use paint badly and make a horrid mess of a picture that looks junk?

Of perhaps other tools should be banned as whilst there are those who use the tools well and take time and care to make great things, there are others that don't really now how to use them properly and make something poor and rubbish.

Banning Tools because some people use them poorly feels a very strange way to run things.

 

[jonparadise]

To people who think Vibe Coding should be banned.

Should artists paints be banned as they well paint, and there are some amazing users who create amazing art with paints, and there are others who use paint badly and make a horrid mess of a picture that looks junk?

Of perhaps other tools should be banned as whilst there are those who use the tools well and take time and care to make great things, there are others that don't really now how to use them properly and make something poor and rubbish.

Banning Tools because some people use them poorly feels a very strange way to run things.

To be fair, if someone paints a dodgy picture, it doesn’t cause any harm other than being unpleasant to look at.

If someone creates a vibe coded app without having the first idea of what is going on under the hood, then offers it to people to install on their devices, that could have serious consequences for security and stability of the device.

 

[ChrisA]

I don't understand much in this article, but I'd like to! I had never heard of vibe coding until I read this article. Can someone help explain in lay terms the problem with vibe coded apps?

It is an app that generates apps from simple English sentences. You tell it what you want, and then the app builds it and loads it onto your phone. But this is also a way to get around Apple's safety reviews. For example, I could ask for an app that helps me plan a mass school shooting. Of course, Apple would never allow that app in the store, but these vibe apps make bypassing the store easy.

 

[dannys1]

Thank you. I love this way of putting it. I don’t understand why so many act like they buy the house but the builder gets to decide what goes in it. They even decide if your own kids get to go into the house as you can’t write your own software and just put it onto your devices. They actually have to be provisioned by Apple.


Again, Apple is selling these for profit not at a loss. There should be no expectation for them to get any further revenue from you once they sell you the device.

It’s not it works for Macs, Windows, Linux, Android.

But on the other hand, why should a smartphone be treated like a PC?

My TV isn't, my microwave isn't, my home hub isn't, Alexa devices aren't, Games consoles aren't, my cars stereo unit isn't.

They're all small computers of different power capable of doing other things but have been "locked down" by the manufacturer so you can't do them.

The versatility of the smartphone seems to be the reason it's claimed it should be treated as a PC and not a games console.

 

[Rock_Artist]

The iOS like eco-system is ill in comparison to the macOS. The MacBook Neo shows how performant the silicon when used with less constrained OS limitations.

My guess is Apple who's been very low-key with Swift Playground not getting attention for more than a year is planning their iOS 27. and as they're the owner of the device, software and the App Store. they basically start preparing the ground for those.

My guesses:
- Eventually we'll have some Xcode on iPad at least. capable of doing what Apple is blocking from other developers... building actual apps on device.
- New Xcode/Coding app for iPad will have AI support.
- iOS/iPadOS 27 will claim to finally have full AI / agentic integration (on device but also with Apple<>Gemini, Anthropic, OpenAI, etc)
- There will be a framework or something claimed to make it "secure" or privacy-focused for users needed to be used by developers for AI apps with vibe coding.
- The AppStore will have more specific rules for such apps after Apple released their app now being first and first-party in store...

 

[Earwolf]

 

[Abazigal]

The problem is Apple forcing these things to go through the App Store.

There should be no problem with generating and running applications on one's own device.

Of course the problem with that is an existential one for Apple, as their entire business depends on siphoning a cut of all applications that run on their platform.

Edit: I'm curious which part of this people are disagreeing with. As usual most people just drive by disagree without saying why.

Is it the local code part, the business model part, or both? I'm genuinely curious and want to hear a different opinion than mine.

I feel like the issue isn't so much that Apple doesn't get a cut, but that the point of app store vetting becomes meaningless when the app in question can become anything the user wants.

Imagine if the App Store still banned emulators (example), you allow a vibe-coding app into the App Store as it technically isn't an emulator, and then someone downloads it and enters a few prompts to get it to simulate the functionality of a game emulator. Or a VPN app. Or a vaping-related app.

It threatens the vitality and the viability of the App Store not just for Apple, but other smaller developers as well. Remember that the bulk of Apple's App Store revenue comes from freemium game IAPs, which is something that vibe coding apps can't quite emulate. Yet.

 

[maflynn]

he problem is Apple forcing these things to go through the App Store.

Of course, more apps that are in the app store, the more money they make.

for macos, we still have options to loading apps outside the MAS, but sadly, we are for all intents and purpses in a walled garden for iOS

 

[ifxf]

I've never read them either, but I'm sure you did when clicked on "Accept"

Apple makes you click it twice which makes it doubly enforceable.

 

[Kevin Palser]

To be fair, if someone paints a dodgy picture, it doesn’t cause any harm other than being unpleasant to look at.

If someone creates a vibe coded app without having the first idea of what is going on under the hood, then offers it to people to install on their devices, that could have serious consequences for security and stability of the device.

Eloquently put. Hate to be a lecturer in a computer science faculty dealing with grading projects these days. At least they get to review the source code. Apple's App Store reviewers only look at the finished products and what automated scan tools might superficially flag.

 

[ifxf]

Has Apple banned vibe coding apps from MacOS store?

 

[RandalGraves]

Huh. Who would have thunk that there is more to coding than just asking AI to build some garbage for you. /s

 

[Tim Jobs the 2nd]

Huh. Who would have thunk that there is more to coding than just asking AI to build some garbage for you. /s

So then why are programmers freaking out about AI taking their jobs if AI can’t do anything besides garbage?

 

[CarAnalogy]

One home builder says “you can do what you want - we might throw up a warning that what you want isn’t a good idea, but if you want to put an electrical outlet in your bathtub, you can!” The other says “we don’t think you should have to think about safety or security so we’ll handle that for you, but it’s our way or the highway. If you don’t like it, go see the other builder.” I don’t know why people on MacRumors always seem shocked lots of people prefer the second option.


If you don’t like Apple’s rules buy from the competition. Millions of people buy Apple devices because of these rules (or maybe more accurately, because of the benefits resulting from these rules), not in spite of them.


It’s incredible to me the amount of people on this forum who think they should be able to dictate how Apple’s OS operates when there is a perfectly fine alternative that does everything that they want.

The accurate analogy you're looking for here is building codes. We're talking about control to the degree of saying what wall you can hang pictures on and what the pictures can be of. You're talking about basic safety issues.

Apple is abusing their position and claiming to care about safety issues, but really they use that control to protect their position. Hence stories like this.

I don't think we'll convince each other but let's at least keep the focus on what it's about.

 

[Kevin Palser]

So then why are programmers freaking out about AI taking their jobs if AI can’t do anything besides garbage?

Programmers themselves don't often get to call the shots. Good programmers can still be let go because of bad decisions riding on a wave of industry trends. AI can also produce good results but not without careful coaxing. I'm currently improving code by hand that an AI agent created saving a lot of our time but still not meeting our standards.

 

[pigeonguy]

This is the hugest irony of all here. It literally is, or is starting to be. Apple has been using AI coding assistants already and have now released XCode with one as well.

There's no irony at all. If you can't see that then I don't know what to say.

There's a stark difference between the two situations.

 

[Abazigal]

So then why are programmers freaking out about AI taking their jobs if AI can’t do anything besides garbage?

I am less worried about AI taking programmers’ jobs, than I am worried about managers being led to believe that some new AI fad on the market could potentially replace programmers, and lead them to firing perfectly competent employees in favour of some overpriced software package which doesn’t deliver on its promises.

That’s the real threat that AI poses. Not replacing labour, but devaluing it.

 

[CarAnalogy]

There's no irony at all. If you can't see that then I don't know what to say.

There's a stark difference between the two situations.

There's a stark difference now. But at the same time Apple is banning AI generated applications, they are internally using AI coding tools and releasing Xcode with AI to the public.

So maybe macOS isn't "vibe coded" now because it's so old, but modifications going forward may well be.

And the irony is that Apple's own apps for a long time now have been absolute minimum viable product that experienced developers would be ashamed of, exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from "vibe coding."

 

[JMalone]

When you buy a home, you can put any furniture in it you like, remodel its interior however you like, and so on. You don't have to have architected it for it to be your own home.

We actually live in the age of information and this guy hasn’t learned that most of the time you need planning permission from local authorities and that there are dozens of regulations that need to be followed. Inside and outside your home.

 

[JMalone]

Is vibecoding like dancing while you figure out why your code doesn’t work?

If you go to Reddit macapps you will see almost every hour some clown posting their really bad vibe coded garbage and they want money for it. They even want subscriptions for it. Without even revealing who they are. I don’t know how the App Store lets all that crap on there. It’s was even worse on SetApp or whatever they called themselves before they gave up the ghost.

Zero originality, terrible UIs, vibe coded buggy trash. They have access to powerful AI and yet they can’t come up with a single novel idea. Just churn out low quality disposable apps like the Shein of software dev.