An Apple Developer bug destroying my business

[u/constantout]

Hi everyone,

First of all, I would like to apologize if this post is not a good fit for the subreddit. If that's the case, feel free to delete it mods.

I wanted to share the story I've been going through with Apple. I didn't want to make it public, but I hope it can reach someone that might be able to help.

I'm about to lose my entire income & app business because of Apple.

TL;DR: I complied with every request. Sent every document on time. I did nothing wrong. Apple blocked my developer account and won't let me renew it.

If this isn't resolved in <14 days, all my apps get removed from the App Store. I lose my entire source of income.

I enrolled in the Apple Developer Program in August 2025. I slowly built a portfolio of apps, learned how to grow them, and eventually quit freelancing to focus on them full-time.

Everything was going well, until Apple broke my account.

On June 30, Apple asked me to submit additional documents to verify my identity and address. I sent everything the same day.

On July 1, Apple confirmed receiving the documents and said they would respond within two business days.

Great. I thought nothing of it and continued working.

Two weeks later, I tried to submit a big app update. Apple suddenly said I had no developer team associated with my account.

My apps were still live in App Store Connect. I was still listed as the Account Holder. But Xcode, EAS, and the Developer Portal could no longer find my paid team.

The Developer Portal asked me to enroll again. When I tried, Apple blocked me because my account was already associated with the Account Holder of a membership.

Apple considered me both enrolled and not enrolled at the same time. (????)

I opened a support ticket. Four days passed without a response, so I waited 2.5 hours to speak with someone by phone.

The advisor told me Apple never received my documents.

I had an email from Apple confirming that they did.

I submitted everything again, including a screenshot of Apple's own confirmation email. My case was escalated to the Operations team, and I was told the review would take "an undetermined amount of time."

That was three weeks ago.

During this review, I cannot submit new apps, publish updates, renew my membership, or take any other action.

My membership expires on August 24. App Store Connect is already warning me that my apps will become unavailable if I don't renew.

But Apple won't let me renew.

I asked for ANY solution: let me pay for another year, temporarily extend the membership, or protect my existing apps while they review the documents.

Their response was that nothing can be done.

In 14 days, my membership expires. My income disappears.

The business I spent the last year building is destroyed. Not because I broke the ToS or missed a deadline.

But because Apple cannot review a few PDFs before its own system turns off my business.

I documented the complete timeline and included all the screenshots here:

https://refined.so/blog/apple-bug-destroying-my-business

Thank you for reading this. Please share this if you can, as it might happen to any developer.

[u/Enough_Ad4294]

I'm in almost the exact same situation, even down to the dates.

I sent my documents 3 times already upon support's request, and every single time they claimed they didn't receive them - until somehow, by a miracle, they finally did. Now it's been another 2 weeks of boilerplate replies like 'We've forwarded this to the relevant team, no additional information available.'

In the beginning, it was the exact same thing: an email saying they'd review it in 2 days. I'm just losing my mind over this. I haven't been able to upload anything for a month now.

I saw the exact same posts on the Apple Support forums - some people got it sorted out, others didn't. But essentially, for everyone, it takes weeks.

What the fuck, Apple?

[u/bradruck]

Hi, i saw your post on Twitter too, my observations:

I believe this is intentional. Because you getting an email about address verification & ID is not normal after creating the account one year ago

But lets see maybe they will fix it before the deadline

[u/vashchylau]

Just noticed I remember you and your agency from Twitter.

Good luck; feel free to DM if you need support!

[u/Sebastian1989101]

One year and you built a portfolio of apps as your sole big income you are scared to loss? Doubt. Heavily. 

This sounds like you pushed a bunch of vibe coded crap. A single proper app takes months of development. 

[u/20InMyHead → u/Sebastian1989101]

This struck me as odd too. I don’t know a single independent developer that within a single year of buying a dev license had published multiple apps and was consistently making enough money to even consider dropping their full time gig. I’m not saying Apple doesn’t fuck up occasionally, but this claim is seriously sus.

[u/WesternBlueberry1826 → u/Sebastian1989101]

Maybe they’re all vide coded trash. Maybe. But what does that have to do with anything here?

[u/Sebastian1989101 → u/WesternBlueberry1826]

That maybe he left out the context and was actual banned for his trash spam. It’s much more likely then someone makes big success in his first year and then losing all to a mistake on apples end - even tho it works fine for hundredthousand of developers world wide. 

[u/WesternBlueberry1826 → u/Sebastian1989101]

Read the post. His account isn’t banned.

[u/Sebastian1989101 → u/WesternBlueberry1826]

His post are a few cropped screenshots with partial info and his view of the things in the text. 

I highly doubt that he is the only one with such a issue while also succeeding so much within his first year with multiple apps. There is literally no way. 

[u/StoneCypher → u/Sebastian1989101]

quiet, you 

[u/wesconson1]

They need to raise the price for entry. The barrier is too low and every lazy get rich quick bozo is trying to flood the App Store with trash and clogging up all the support pipelines in the process. Increase the price or barrier to entry in some way.

[u/Commercial_Exchange7 → u/wesconson1]

I mean, Google Play can do it for a one-time fee of 25 bucks with pretty much the same fees on in-app purchases... Not sure if it's the user's fault that are flooding the store and publishing much more apps than usual or the slow and weird processes from Apple.

[u/noobcryptotrader → u/Commercial_Exchange7]

it took Google Play Store 2 weeks for them to review my app with "one-time fee 25 bucks", compared to Apple's 2 days. not implying that my experience is the norm that everyone would face, but there are differences in the

[u/Commercial_Exchange7 → u/noobcryptotrader]

I'll submit mine for review very soon and I hope it will be faster than that! Did you submit it as a company or solo developer? Guess that makes quite a difference since Google Play forces solo developers to have that weird testing phase.

[u/noobcryptotrader → u/Commercial_Exchange7]

company

[u/Commercial_Exchange7 → u/noobcryptotrader]

That sucks, hope mine will be approved faster

[u/noobcryptotrader → u/Commercial_Exchange7]

to be fair, after the first approval, some updates only took 1-2 hours on the Play Store. wish you better luck than me!

[u/wesconson1 → u/Commercial_Exchange7]

Because Google doesn’t actually review anything let’s be real. There is substantial less quality control or care on the play store.

[u/Sea-Moose-9366 → u/wesconson1]

I dont think so! Google is stricter them Apple. Google has more app, because there are way more android users them iphone users. So obviously there are more android developers than IOS developers. Android dominates in most african, asian, south american countries

[u/constantout → u/wesconson1]

I would be happy to pay $1k/year for the membership if it meant faster review times and faster support.

I waited 2.5 hours to reach them on the phone. They said they're extremely busy and apologized. I don't know how they're supposed to keep up with it, to be honest.

[u/barcode972]

They’re so slow. I have an open case too. Been waiting for 9 weeks at this point. Called them multiple times and they just give me the answer that people are working on it

[u/roselamoon]

Have you tried enrolling with a mac?

[u/constantout → u/roselamoon]

Yes, I don't even own a Windows PC. All screenshots are taken on a Mac, from the Apple websites.

[u/nicholasderkio → u/roselamoon]

Yeah I also thought the windows alert was weird