Patterns I noticed after reviewing multiple App Review metadata rejections
Over the last few submissions, I went back and re-read a handful of App Review rejection emails side by side.
Individually, the feedback felt vague — “clarify wording”, “adjust descriptions”, “metadata doesn’t fully align with functionality”.
But once I lined them up, the patterns were surprisingly consistent.
Certain phrases around capabilities, automation, or “AI-like” behavior kept triggering follow-ups.
Even when the actual functionality hadn’t changed, small wording choices made a big difference in how reviewers reacted.
What stood out to me was that most of these issues weren’t obvious while writing the metadata, especially when you’re deep in development mode and already know what the app does.
I’m starting to think metadata review is less subjective than it looks — just poorly surfaced.
Curious if others have noticed similar wording patterns over time.
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This is super helpful. I've definitely felt like the review process is a bit of a black box sometimes. Haven't thought about certain keywords being triggers though.
Yeah, same here — once I started listing rejection emails side by side, the triggers felt a lot less random.
Curious if you’ve ever changed only wording and got a different outcome?