Apple’s updated App Store rules go after ‘nudify’ AI apps
The most telling detail here is what Apple didn't do. It tightened the rules to explicitly ban nudify apps, but it left X and Grok on the store after those tools were used to generate sexualized deepfakes of people, including minors. That gap says a lot about where Apple is comfortable drawing lines. Banning a dedicated nudify app is easy, the category is narrow and indefensible. Policing a general-purpose image generator that can be misused is a much messier fight, and Apple clearly didn't want it.
That said, the rule change isn't meaningless. It gives app reviewers explicit language to reject these apps at submission, which should close off the sleazier corners of the store. And it puts developers on notice that this category is now formally off-limits.
What I'd want to know next is how Apple defines nudify in practice. Does it cover any model that can be steered toward creating intimate images, or just apps that market themselves that way? The distinction matters, because the Grok incident showed the harm travels through mainstream tools, not just dedicated ones. Codifying the ban is a reasonable step, but it's a policy that mostly affects the apps nobody was defending anyway.