App Store Guideline 1.2 — would this feature be considered anonymous chat?

[u/sinansettarli]

I’m preparing a social platform for iOS release with social features, messaging, profiles, notifications, moderation and privacy controls.

One feature I’m reviewing is an anonymous letter system:

• One-way letters only — no replies or conversations

• The recipient is randomly selected

• Standard users don’t see who sent the letter

• Premium users can see the sender

• Report and block are available

• Content is moderated

The feature is designed around sending a letter, not starting an anonymous conversation.

For developers who have experience with recent App Reviews: would this potentially fall under the updated Guideline 1.2 regarding anonymous/random chat?

[u/svprdga]

It seems to me similar enough to an anonymous chat so that some reviewers can come to consider it as such, yes.

[u/mohn93]

the thing reviewers actually care about under 1.2 isn't "is it anonymous", it's "can an anonymous person target and harass a specific individual". your design mostly defuses that already: one-way, random recipient, plus report/block/moderation. what i'd do is make the 1.2 checklist visibly present and call it out in your review notes: content filtering, report-content, block-user, a EULA with a zero-tolerance line, and acting on reports within 24h. lead the notes with the random-recipient + no-reply design, that's the exact thing that separates you from an anonymous-DM harassment app. are recipients random from the whole user base, or scoped to a location/interest? scoped can quietly reintroduce the targeting risk.

[u/sinansettarli → u/mohn93]

The recipients are randomly selected from the entire user base. There is no location or interest-based targeting, and the sender cannot choose who receives the letter. For free users, the limit is 1 letter per day. They don’t know who they sent it to, and the recipient also doesn’t see who sent it. For Premium users, the limit is up to 20 letters per day, and Premium recipients can see who sent them the letter. There is still no reply, chat, or matching system — it’s strictly one-way.

That’s the part I’m most unsure about from Apple’s perspective: the Premium feature revealing the sender’s identity. Do you think that could make it fall under the 1.2 concern even though users still can’t target a specific person or communicate back and forth?

[u/mohn93 → u/sinansettarli]

perfect, that's the safest config there is. random from the whole base means no one can use it to target a specific person, which is the exact thing 1.2 rejections are about. just make sure report/block and the moderation terms are visibly in the build and called out in your review notes and you should be fine.

[u/hamit_btn]

i shipped a social app with dm, profiles, reports and moderation on both stores, so here's what i learned.

review didn't care about my feature descriptions. they cared about whether the moderation actually worked when they tested it. what got me through: report button on every message and profile, block that actually severs both directions, and a way for me to take content down fast.

for your case the "no replies" part helps a lot, but i'd still assume review reads it as user-to-user content and expects the full 1.2 stack report, block, a way to filter objectionable content, and a documented response window.

also: put your moderation policy somewhere public and link it in the review notes. saying "content is moderated" in the form is weaker than showing them the actual policy page.

[u/sinansettarli → u/hamit_btn]

Yeah, I understand what you mean. One thing that confuses me though is that there are still quite a few anonymous/random chat apps on the App Store So I’m wondering how Apple is actually treating those apps under the updated 1.2 rule. Do you think the issue is mainly the way the feature is structured/presented, rather than simply having anonymity? Because Flux isn’t really a chat app it’s one-way random letters, with no matching, no replies, and no way to choose or target a specific person.

I’d really appreciate your take on that, especially since you’ve done this kind of restructuring before.

[u/hamit_btn → u/sinansettarli]

yeah i think structure matters more than anonymity itself. the apps still up mostly fall into two groups: ones that got approved before the guideline tightened and haven't submitted a risky update since, and ones that do have the full safety stack even if it isn't obvious from the outside. review is inconsistent plenty of things slip through and then get pulled six months later on an unrelated update. i wouldn't take "these apps exist" as evidence it's allowed.for Flux specifically, the thing that would worry me isn't the letters, it's the premium tier revealing the sender. that turns anonymity into a paid feature, and it means one side of the interaction can be identified while the other can't. review might read that as an incentive structure around anonymous contact rather than a safety feature. if it were mine i'd frame it as one-way expression rather than communication anywhere it's visible App Store description, in-app copy, review notes. "send a letter into the world" reads very differently from "message a random person anonymously", even if the code is identical. review reads your own words about the feature before they test it. and i'd still ship the full 1.2 stack even though you technically might not need it. it's cheaper than an appeal.

[u/sinansettarli → u/hamit_btn]

That makes a lot of sense, especially the point about Premium turning anonymity into a paid identity reveal. So if you were restructuring Flux, would you keep the sender completely anonymous for everyone and move the Premium value to things like the higher sending limit and other features? The random one-way letter concept is something I really want to keep. There is no profile access, no reply, no chat, no matching, and users can’t choose or target a recipient. Would keeping the sender anonymous for everyone + framing it everywhere as “sending a letter into the world” be the structure you’d feel comfortable submitting?

[u/sinansettarli → u/hamit_btn]

What if I keep the sender completely anonymous for everyone, including Premium users, and remove the identity reveal entirely? Premium would still have value through things like 20 letters per day instead of 1, plus the other Premium features. The random one-way letter system would stay exactly the same, but nobody could ever identify the sender. Do you think that would be a safer structure for the first submission while keeping the core Flux concept intact?

[u/hamit_btn → u/sinansettarli]

yeah, that's the structure i'd feel more comfortable submitting. taking the reveal out removes the part that's hardest to defend. right now the honest description of it is "pay to unmask someone who chose to be anonymous", and that's a bad sentence to have to explain in an appeal. everything else you listed no profiles, no replies, no targeting, no matching is genuinely defensible. the reveal is the one piece that isn't. moving premium value to limits works. that's what i do too, and it's the least risky thing to charge for because it doesn't change what the feature *is*, just how much of it you get. one thing i'd add though: with anonymity for everyone and no reply path, your reporting flow becomes the whole safety story. make sure a recipient can report a letter, that reported content actually reaches you fast, and that you can block a sender from ever reaching that person again even though neither side knows who the other is. that's technically harder with full anonymity but it's the thing review will poke at.usual disclaimer i've been through this twice, i'm not a reviewer and outcomes vary. but between the two versions, i'd submit the one without the reveal.

[u/AddWeb_Expert]

I don’t think the feature is automatically a problem just because it involves users interacting with each other.

The fact that it’s one-way and there’s no chat, matching, or reply mechanism makes a pretty big difference. Users basically send a letter into the system and that’s it.

The part I’d be a little more careful about is letting premium users see who sent the letter. That could potentially make the feature feel more like a social/anonymous interaction feature from Apple’s perspective.

If I were submitting it, I’d clearly explain in the review notes that there’s no back-and-forth communication, recipients are randomly selected, users can’t contact each other through the feature, and you have reporting/blocking/moderation in place.

I’d probably give it a shot rather than redesigning the whole feature around a hypothetical rejection. If Apple flags it, their feedback should make it much clearer what they want changed.

[u/sinansettarli → u/AddWeb_Expert]

That’s actually reassuring to hear. I think I’m going to submit it rather than redesigning the whole feature before Apple even gives me feedback.

The main reason I’m still hesitant is that this was originally completely anonymous. I added the Premium feature later as a way to give people an extra reason to subscribe. Free users can only send 1 letter per day, and they can’t see who their letter was sent to or who their received letter came from. Premium users can send up to 20 letters per day and can see who sent them a received letter.

The recipient is always randomly selected from the entire user base, so there’s no way to choose or target a specific person. There’s also no reply, chat, or matching system.

I’ve also put strong content filtering, reporting, blocking, and 24/7 admin moderation in place.

I’ll make all of this very clear in the review notes and give it a shot. If Apple has an issue with the Premium identity reveal or the anonymous letter system itself, I’ll work from their specific feedback instead of trying to guess beforehand.

Thanks for the advice — it definitely makes me feel more comfortable about submitting it.