Apple says it is tweaking changes announced at WWDC to App Store policies around Sign in with Apple and the rules around children's app categories
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
At WWDC in June 2019, Apple set two rules that landed hard on developers: apps in the kids category can no longer carry third-party advertising or analytics, and Sign in with Apple was introduced with requirements for apps offering other social logins. Weeks later, Apple is walking back the edges of both — a rare mid-cycle adjustment before the rules fully bite.
The pattern matters because it previews how App Store governance actually evolves: the 2020 revisions that let developers challenge guidelines and stopped update delays formalized that feedback loop, and the children's-rules thread kept running all the way to Apple's age-range confirmation API and updated age ratings in 2025.
First-order effects
- Developers who had already reworked login flows for Sign in with Apple, or stripped ad and analytics SDKs from kids-category apps, now face a moving target and must re-check compliance against the tweaked rules before shipping.
Second-order effects
- Third-party login providers and ad/analytics SDK vendors serving children's apps get a reprieve or a narrowed mandate depending on the final text, and rival platforms face pressure to match Apple's sign-in and child-safety terms to keep cross-platform apps consistent.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, App Store policy becomes an iterative negotiation rather than a one-way decree — with children's rules as the most actively revised area, eventually hardening into formal age-assurance APIs like the ones Apple shipped years later.
The trend: Platform gatekeepers are shifting from issuing fixed App Store rules to continuously renegotiating them with developers, with children's privacy and sign-in requirements as the most contested ground.