Hi all,
I'm looking for guidance or experiences from others who’ve run into this issue.
I'm developing a series of educational apps that teach different languages from English, using a simple flashcard-based format. Each app is fully offline, has no ads, no subscriptions, and contains native audio and culturally relevant images for that specific language.
Each language pack (audio + images + data) is around 50MB, and I’m planning to support 50 languages. Because of size constraints and my offline-first approach, it’s not feasible to combine all languages into a single app.
To stay user-friendly and efficient:
Each app contains only one language.
Each has its own name and icon (e.g., “Babel Bash Chinese ”, “Babel Bash Thai”).
All use the same visual structure (by design) for brand consistency and usability.
Despite this, I’ve had an app rejected under Guideline 4.3(a) – Spam, with the reasoning that it duplicates the functionality of another app I've submitted (even though the language, audio, and visuals are completely different).
The suggested workaround was to restrict storefronts to avoid overlap, but since the apps teach from English, they need to be available in the same countries (where English speakers live).
Combining all languages isn’t an option due to:
App size (50×50MB = 2GB+)
No internet access allowed
No downloadable content (for schools, remote use, and privacy reasons)
My Questions: Has anyone successfully appealed this kind of rejection? If so, how?
Are there any recommended patterns for publishing multiple single-language educational apps that don’t run afoul of 4.3(a)?
Would Apple be more open to language bundles (e.g., 3–5 languages per app) even if structure stays the same?
Is there any precedent or Apple guidance that allows this kind of distribution?
This feels like a valid educational use case that’s being treated as spam simply because of structural reuse even though the content and audience are entirely different.
Any insight, advice, or Apple feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
