Common Reasons for App Store Review Rejection: Screenshot Specs and Permission Description Pitfalls

Anyone who does iOS development has likely encountered this situation: after submitting your app with great effort, you receive an App Store review rejection email the next day with a variety of reasons—incorrect screenshot sizes, missing privacy policy links, unclear permission usage descriptions, and so on. Most rejection reasons can be avoided in advance, without waiting to be rejected before making changes. Here are the common reasons for rejection, categorized and explained with how to fix each. Screenshots and Metadata Issues Screenshots are a frequent cause of rejection. Rejections can result from sizes not conforming to App Store specifications, screenshots containing unreleased features, screenshots marked with test environment indicators (such as "beta" watermarks), screenshots inconsistent with the actual interface, or screenshots with incorrect device model labels. These issues can be caught by checking for yourself before submission. How to fix: Regenerate screenshots at the sizes required by App Store, with one set for 6.5 inches and another for 5.5 inches. If your app supports iPhone only, these two sets are sufficient; if it supports iPad, add an additional set. App Store screenshots do not support transparent backgrounds (alpha channel), so convert transparent backgrounds to opaque before uploading. When batch-uploading screenshots, tools like Appuploader allow you to select multiple images at once and upload them automatically sorted by device size, rather than dragging them one by one on the web page. Privacy Issues Missing privacy policy links or incomplete content is a common reason for rejection. If your app collects user data (including via third-party SDKs), you must provide a privacy policy, and the link must be accessible. How to fix: Prepare a privacy policy page and host it at an accessible URL, then fill in the link in the privacy policy section in App Store Connect. If your app involves third-party SDKs for advertising, analytics, payme