App Review

App Review is the team of human reviewers at Apple who check every submission against the App Store Review Guidelines before it can be sold or distributed.

Disambiguation first, because the phrase is overloaded. In marketing and ASO writing, "app reviews" means the star ratings and written feedback users leave on your product page. In submission work, App Review means Apple's gatekeeping team. This glossary uses the second meaning throughout. When a page talks about "responding to reviews", check which one it means before you act on it.

App Review is people, not a linter. They install your build on a real device, use it, read your metadata, and check whether the two agree. That is why rejections cite things static analysis would never catch: a paywall that appears before any value, a feature named in your What's New that they could not find, a sign-in wall with no demo account.

Their decision arrives as a status change in App Store Connect plus a message in Resolution Center, usually quoting a guideline number. The number tells you which argument you are having. The body text is what you actually have to fix.

Apple sometimes publishes average review times. Treat them as averages, not promises. Nothing you do makes your place in the queue predictable, and no status in the console tells you how far along you are.

See also: Resolution Center, metadata rejection, expedited review.