Synth Developers Report 25 to 29 Days in Apple App Review and Repeated Spam Rejections

Apple's App Review is rejecting and stalling new synth and audio apps, according to developer reports gathered by Synth Anatomy on November 12, and the developers involved suspect automation. Apple has not commented, and the reports are the developers' own.

The Synth Anatomy report names seven developers. Its headline attributes the problem to A.I., which is the author's interpretation: Apple has not confirmed that it uses A.I. in review.

What developers say happened

Unfiltered Audio's Sinusoidal Run Rhythm was rejected four times, according to a post by Michael Hetrick on the Loopy Pro forum quoted in the report. The reasons ranged from a request for a video demonstration to a reviewer treating "Polyharmonic" as an audio technology needing a documented licence. The MIDI version was flagged as spam for resembling the audio one.

Marek Dendes said his CRUX Synth was rejected four times in a row, citing "design spam", "duplicates existing apps" and use of "app generation template services". He said its status moved from "Waiting for Review" to "In Review" to "Rejected" within seconds, and that appeals to the App Review Board got no reply after about five days.

App and developer	Reported status on November 12
Materia, AudioThing	Approved after 25 days and one rejection
Seconds, AudioThing and Hainbach	In review for 29 days
CRUX Synth, Marek Dendes	Rejected four times
Sinusoidal Run Rhythm, Unfiltered Audio	Rejected four times, audio version released
HollowTone, Igor Vasiliev	In review for weeks

1. Seconds (still in review)29 days
2. Materia (approved)25 days

Source: Synth Anatomy, November 12, 2026, developer-reported figures

Pittsburgh Modular released its Microvolt 3901 VST on October 27, and the iOS version arrived November 12 despite a planned simultaneous release.

What Apple's own rules say

Apple's review page says App Review typically reviews "at least 50% of submissions in less than 24 hours and 90% in less than 48 hours". It carries no date for those figures. Against that, 25 and 29 days are outliers by a wide margin, though a handful of reports cannot show how common they are.

The rejection reasons map onto Apple's App Review Guidelines. Guideline 4.3(b) bars apps "indistinguishable from what's already widely available", and 4.1(a) tells developers not to copy popular apps. Apple has not said which guideline applied to which rejection. The guidelines do not mention automated review.

What is not established

Hetrick's and Dendes's accounts are not independently verified. Synth Anatomy includes commenter reports that a different developer was approved within 24 hours after one rejection, which cuts against a blanket slowdown. The report contains no Apple statement, and Dendes said his contacts at Apple gave no real help.

Apple's own Support Community closure on November 20 removes one more public place where developers and users compare notes. Another platform-side change this week is Outlook.com's SPF and DMARC bounces. Developers waiting on a decision can only watch App Store Connect, and Apple has given no date by which stalled submissions will be cleared.