A guideline in Apple's App Store is disrupting vibe coding apps, which has led to the removal and blocking of three in the past month. According to a report from The Information, vibe coding app Anything was recently removed from the App Store.
Vibe coding has taken the world by storm and changed the way people look at apps and website creation. You don't need any technical know-how with vibe coding -- you can create them simply by chatting to large language models like Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT.
With the rise in popularity of vibe coding came new apps, letting you vibe code right from your phone. And this is where the problem lies.
Apple says it's not gunning for vibe coding apps, but rather just enforcing its own guidelines that state delivering unreviewed software within an app bypasses the privacy and security safeguards it has in place to protect users.
CNET confirmed the issue surrounds a specific guideline in the App Store, 2.5.2:
"Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not read or write data outside the designated container area, nor may they download, install or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps," the guideline says. "Educational apps designed to teach, develop or allow students to test executable code may, in limited circumstances, download code provided that such code is not used for other purposes. Such apps must make the source code provided by the app completely viewable and editable by the user."
AI vibe coding apps Replit and Vibecode were blocked from pushing updates within the App Store in March, according to another report from The Information. It's reported that this was also due to that guideline, with Apple requesting changes be made to those apps.
Watch this: Your Phone is Disgusting: Let's Fix That
The app Vibecode, which has maintained a similar tagline of "the easiest way to create beautiful mobile apps" or "vibe code apps on your phone" since it launched, was updated on March 18 with a change of tune. The new tagline completely removed the "app" verbiage, and its new tagline is: "Vibecode is the No. 1 app to build powerful websites with AI, fast." The latest update also says that the app has moved to a learning-focused product and allows you to build websites -- not apps.
Apple's section 3.31.(B) of the Developer Program License also says: "Interpreted code may be downloaded to an application but only so long as such code: (a) does not change the primary purpose of the application by providing features or functionality that are inconsistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the application."
Given the guidelines that are being highlighted surrounding these types of applications, Apple is enforcing its rules that an app must maintain its original functionality and can't change its primary purpose.
The whole idea of vibe coding is to create something from your own words, and apps like Anything, Replit and Vibecode give you a platform to do that, though the resulting apps will do anything but maintain the functionality of a vibe coding app.