What Guideline 4.2 says
“Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website. If your app is not particularly useful, unique, or "app-like," it doesn't belong on the App Store.”
“Other than catalogs, apps shouldn't primarily be marketing materials, advertisements, web clippings, content aggregators, or a collection of links.”
Why Lovable apps hit it
Lovable builds web apps, and the fastest way into the App Store is a wrapper that loads your published site (see your publishing options). That is what Guideline 4.2 is written to catch. Reviewers tend to notice things like:
- Pages that load like a website, with browser-style navigation and no native back gestures.
- Links that open your website, a cookie banner or a site footer inside the app.
- Sign-in that bounces through a web page.
- An app that is identical to the website, with nothing extra on the phone.
How to fix a 4.2 rejection
- Read the rejection note in App Store Connect. It cites the guideline and often says what the reviewer saw.
- Make navigation native: a tab bar or native stack, back gestures, and screens that don't reload like pages.
- Remove web leftovers: cookie banners, website footers, "open in browser" links and anything that sends people to your site.
- Add value that only an app can give, where it fits your product: push notifications, the camera, the share sheet, offline states.
- Make sure sign-in works and give reviewers a demo account (Guideline 2.1).
- Reply in App Store Connect explaining what changed, then resubmit.
If you keep patching a wrapper and it keeps coming back, it is usually faster to convert the app to React Native. See Can Lovable export to React Native or Expo?
How we help
We take your Lovable app the last mile.
Fixing rejections is a large part of what we do. We rebuild your Lovable app as a native React Native and Expo app, run a Guideline 4.2 compliance pass, fix what the reviewer flagged and resubmit as many times as it takes. If it complies with the store policies and we can't get it approved, you get your money back. See plans and pricing.