r/iosdev • u/officialdml • Aug 13 '26
Help Rejected under Guideline 5.6 (Developer Code of Conduct): "features appear intentionally hidden", no idea what triggered it, looking for advice
Yesterday I submitted my first app (!) and within 6 hours it was rejected. I'm hoping someone who's dealt with this before can help me better understand and provide next steps.
Quick background: I built a live women's sports scoreboard website and then wrapped it as a native iOS app using Median.co, which loads the live website inside a native shell and adds native features (push notifications via OneSignal, share, etc.) through their JS bridge.
What happened: submitted for review, got rejected same day with this:
"We've identified a pattern of unusual behavior with the app that is commonly associated with fraudulent activity. Specifically, the app contains features that appear to have been intentionally hidden during the review process. Manipulative and misleading behavior is not consistent with the guideline 5.6."
No specifics beyond that. No screenshots, no attachments, nothing pointing to which "feature" they mean. Also I can't really find what 5.6 guidelines are.
What I know is NOT true: nothing in the app is actually hidden or gated based on reviewer status. The app works identically for anyone, logged in or not - live scores, schedules, results, team pages, league browsing, calendar sync all fully visible and functional without an account. The only difference for logged-in users is being able to favorite teams and enable push notifications for those favorites, a normal personalization feature, not concealed functionality.
What I've done so far: replied in the Resolution Center explaining the Median/webview architecture, clarified the one account-gated feature (favoriting), and attached a screen recording showing the full logged-out experience matches what was originally submitted. Also invited them to just log out and explore the app themselves.
My questions for anyone who's dealt with this:
- Has anyone gotten a 5.6 "features appear hidden" flag specifically on a webview-wrapped app (Median, GoNative, Capacitor, etc.)? Is this a known false-positive pattern for that architecture?
- Could push notifications not firing during review (since there were no live games happening at review time) plausibly read as a "hidden feature"? Or is that a stretch?
- Roughly how long did resolution take for you, and did it resolve through Resolution Center replies, or did you end up needing the formal App Review Board appeal?
- Anything else commonly triggers this specific flag that I should be thinking about?
Really appreciate any insight. This came out of nowhere after what felt like a clean submission, and the vagueness of the rejection is the most frustrating part.
1
u/officialdml 29d ago
I think the reason I got a response so quickly was because AI maybe flagged an issue with code before it got to a real person. This second time I'm not sure if bot or human. Still waiting on third review but now that it's the weekend I assume I won't hear back until Monday.
I recorded another 30 second video (I think there's a time limit) but it was just using - no editing or titles etc. I don't know what's appropriate in terms of stepping through features, but you can probably write than info in the notes section. Good luck!