| Source | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZsX5U_Qey8&t=1s |
|---|---|
| Readwise URL | https://read.readwise.io/read/01kw1f8ghebmxwn808kf4vhcps |
| Readwise ID | 01kw1f8ghebmxwn808kf4vhcps |
| Author | Adam Lyttle |
| Category | video |
| Site | YouTube |
| Published | 2026-04-24 |
| Saved | 2026-06-26T08:03:09.998000+00:00 |
| Tags | adam-lyttle, app-development |
Readwise Summary: This $2M/month indie app just got publicly banned from the App Store. Then Apple did something surprising: they named the exact violations to the press (instead of going silent like usual). I break down the three rules they broke, the hypocrisy nobody’s talking about and the checklist every indie dev shipping right now needs to follow…
Follow my journey here: Website: https://adamlyttleapps.com Twitter: https://x.com/adamlyttleapps Github: https://github.com/adamlyttleapps Instagram: https://instagram.com/adamlyttleapps TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@adamlyttleapps Substack: https://adamlyttleapps.substack.com
Shout out to my amazing video production team at https://clipwing.pro/
#CalAI #AppStore #IndieDev #IndieHacker #iOSDev #AppleDeveloper #AppStoreRejection
Cal AI just got banned from the App Store. And then Apple did something I have never seen them do in all my years of building apps. They pick up the phone, they called the press, and listed the exact violations that got the app pulled. An itemized public checklist of the reasons why. And if you’re shipping apps right now, you need to know what was on that list because you’re either on the right side of it or one bad paywall away from being the next one to
disappear. Cal AI does $2 million a month top of the health category gone overnight. Three violations got them removed. And I walk through all three. Then I’m going to show you the part of the story nobody is actually talking about. Violation one, they ripped out Apple’s in-app purchase and replaced it with a Stripe payment link. That’s guideline 3.1.1. You’re allowed to offer external payments now, but only to US customers,
and you have to keep it alongside the Apple in-app purchase all along. Cal AI cut Apple out of that 30% and hid their in-app purchase option. And Apple noticed. Violation two, the paywall. The weekly price was displayed bigger and bolder than the amount that the user was actually billed. Big number up the top, real number in fine print. That’s guideline 3.1.2c. It’s considered a dark pattern by Apple and they had done pretending not to see
it. And violation number three. If a user declined the first paywall, they got shown this second one with a different price and different terms. The App Store reviews filled up with users calling this a scam, and Apple apparently read those reviews. Three violations, one of the biggest indie apps in the world removed. But that’s only half the story. The moment Cal AI disappeared, the copycats took over.
Apps with the same name, same icon, same onboarding flow, same exact paywall structure. Downloads that were meant for Cal AI flowing straight to them. And Apple didn’t touch them. The real one got pulled, and the fake one stayed live collecting revenue on the back of someone else’s hard work. And that’s the part that I find the most confusing. Because if you’re an indie app developer, you already live this reality. Every single one of my apps that I’ve mentioned on this channel has
been copied. Screenshots, icons, everything cloned down to the button color. And there is almost nothing that I can actually do about it. And I get DMs every week from indie app developers watching their apps get cloned in real time. Weeks of testing, paywall iterations that took months, onboarding flow that they fine-tuned with analytics, all just replicated by AI in an afternoon by someone just wanting to copy it. So here’s the hypocrisy nobody
is saying out loud. If you cut Apple out of their 30%, they remove your app. Fair enough, they’re the rules. But if someone copies your app, steals your branding, and still pays Apple their 30%, Apple lets them keep running. Apple is quietly saying it’s fine to copy as long as we get our cut. And that’s the double standard the community isn’t talking about enough. But here’s where the story actually turns. Cal AI is back
on the App Store. Apple gave them the chance to fix it. They removed the violations, they resubmitted the app, and it’s live again. And this is the part of the story that is actually new. Because until now, when Apple banned you, you were just gone. That’s it. And I featured indie app developers on this channel that I’ve met in real life, decent, hardworking, honest developers who have lived this. Silently wiped in the middle of the night with no warning and no explanation. This time Apple
said, “Hey, here’s what’s wrong. Go fix it, then come back.” And that is very different from Apple. And once Cal AI returned, Apple finally started pulling those copycats, too. So here is what I think Apple is actually telling us. The rules are real now. We will enforce them in public. But if you’re honest about the mistake, there is a way back in. And that is a better App Store than the one that we had just 6 months ago. And if
this is starting to feel like something you’ve heard before, I made a video about surviving the next 6 months on the App Store, about turbulent times, changes coming, rules tightening. I’ll link it below. If you watched it back then, this moment is exactly what I was talking about. So if you’re shipping right now, here is your checklist. Keep Apple’s in-app purchase as an option, always. Make the billing amount the biggest number on the paywall, and never stack a second offer after the first one
has been declined. Break those rules and you might find yourself being the next Cal AI, but not in a good way. In a your app is going to be removed from the App Store type of way. Except you probably won’t have $2 million a month and a TechCrunch article to get you reinstated. You’ll just be gone. Cal AI got the phone call most indie developers won’t. Subscribe and I’ll keep tracking this. The next time Apple pulls an indie
app, we’re going to find out whether this is a new era from Apple or whether Cal AI was the only one they were ever going to give a second chance to. Don’t be the test subject.