Towards the end of last year, agentic coding (also known as vibe coding) really took off. With the launch of models like Claude Opus 4.5, asking AI to do something for you suddenly became possible, and it happened almost entirely functionally. This level of accuracy has led to less involvement from people in app development, allowing even those who have never written code before to create apps.

Whether one likes this trend or not is another discussion. In any case, one thing is certain: the App Store review process is not suitable for this.

Developers complain about long wait times

Many developers have started submitting apps that are completely vibe coded to the App Store. At the same time, many established developers report longer wait times when submitting app updates.

For reference, Apple reviews every app and app update submitted to the App Store with human reviewers. Traditionally, this wouldn’t have been a major issue – because a handful of human reviewers could handle the load. Considering the actual coding time, there can only be so many app submissions.

Now, this system is not working very well.

Many developers, including independent developers and companies like Twitter, report that app review times have significantly increased; some are waiting over 3 days for review, while others report wait times of a week. Traditionally, this process would take less than a day, sometimes taking one or two days in rare cases.

We can say for sure: vibe coding has disrupted app review.

What’s next?

Apple has long taken pride in having a human review process, and former executive Phil Schiller made efforts not to introduce automated reviews.

However, unless Apple considers hiring significantly more reviewers to review these apps, I’m not sure there’s a way to ensure that fully human reviews continue.

In my opinion, there are two short-term solutions that could be implemented:

  1. Human review for new app submissions, but updates could be automated.
  2. A separate app review queue for well-established developers to ensure their updates can be submitted in a timely manner.

Currently, Apple offers a form where developers can request an expedited review, but this situation has not really been considered for this use case. It is more designed for critical bug fixes and major updates with timelines – not because you are impatient while waiting a week.

Still, for well-established developers who frequently release updates, it is unfair to deal with such long review times due to these vibe coding developers suddenly clogging the queue.

Maybe this trend will pass one day. But at least for now, a part of the human review may need to be eliminated.

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