Built with an AI App Builder? What to Check Before You Submit to the Stores

Tools like Rork, Lovable, Bolt and Base44 can turn a prompt into a working React Native or web app in an afternoon. I like them. They cut the time from idea to something you can hold in your hand.

What they don't cut is the work between "it runs on my phone" and "Apple and Google approved it". I recently did that work on CircleCam, a private social app for small friend circles built with Rork on React Native, Expo and Supabase. This is the checklist I used, in the order I'd use it again.

1. Can a user delete their account inside the app?

Apple (Guideline 5.1.1(v)) and Google Play both require apps that let you create an account to let you delete it from inside the app. A link to an email address isn't enough. AI builders often generate sign-up and sign-out and stop there.

Check what deletion actually removes. In CircleCam, one setting removes the account, profile, posts, chats, reactions, memberships, push tokens, blocks and reports. If your database has tables the builder created that the delete function forgets, that's personal data you are keeping without a reason.

2. Do your login options follow the rules?

If the app offers a third-party login such as Google, Apple's Guideline 4.8 expects an equivalent privacy-focused option, which in practice means Sign in with Apple. Builders sometimes add Google only because it's the default template.

3. User-generated content needs safeguards

Any app where people post or message each other falls under Apple's Guideline 1.2. Reviewers look for a way to report content, a way to block users, terms that say what isn't allowed, and a way to act on reports. For social apps, Google Play also requires published Child Safety Standards with a contact point.

These are easy to miss in a generated app because they don't appear in any happy-path demo.

4. Permissions: one feature per permission

List every permission in the iOS Info.plist and Android manifest, and match each one to a feature. Builders and templates tend to include extras such as location, contacts or background modes "just in case". Each unused permission is a review question and a line in your privacy label. CircleCam ended up with camera, microphone, photos and notifications, and nothing else.

Check the permission prompt text too. "This app needs camera access" isn't enough; say what the camera is for.

5. Privacy label, Data safety and policy must match

This is where I find the most problems. The App Store privacy label, the Google Play Data safety form and the privacy policy are three separate documents, often filled in by three different people. They need to describe the same data used for the same purposes, and all three must match what the code actually sends.

Trace the data yourself: what goes to your backend, what goes to each SDK (analytics, crash reporting, push, AI services), and where it's stored. Then fill in the forms from that list, not from memory.

6. Check what the backend allows

Generated apps often talk straight to a backend like Supabase or Firebase from the client. That's fine only if the database rules are right. Check that each table and storage bucket only lets a user read and write what they should. Also check that no secret keys (service-role keys, third-party API secrets) ended up in the client bundle, because anyone can extract them from a shipped app.

7. Make honest security claims

Marketing copy written by an AI likes words like "end-to-end encrypted" and "completely private". Check every claim against the implementation. CircleCam's chats are encrypted in transit but not end-to-end, and the privacy policy says that plainly. An overclaim is a problem for users, for review, and under consumer protection law.

8. Regional law: GDPR and friends

CircleCam is run by a German company, so GDPR applies. That meant EU data hosting, every processor named in the privacy policy, a stated log retention period and a legal notice (Impressum). Your requirements depend on where you and your users are, but someone has to look. An app builder won't.

9. Store listing and review notes

• Screenshots and descriptions must show what the app actually does today.
• Answer the age-rating questionnaires honestly; user-generated content and messaging affect the result.
• Privacy policy, terms and support URLs must be live before you submit.
• If review needs an account, give the reviewer working credentials.

Audit or rewrite?

For CircleCam we kept the generated code and audited it. The trade-off is that you're trusting a codebase nobody wrote line by line, so the review has to be thorough where it matters: authentication, data access, deletion and permissions. If the audit turns up structural problems in those areas, rewriting that part is cheaper than a string of rejections.

For the broader version of this checklist (performance, analytics, architecture) see What I Check in a Product Audit Before Launch.