Apple Terminated My Dyslexia App Before It Ever Launched — With No Explanation

Who I Am

Hi, I’m Ben. I quit my job at the Pentagon as an economist in 2021 to become a solo developer. Since 2023, I’ve been building Reazy — a text-to-speech app that reads your documents aloud so you can study by listening instead of reading. It’s built for students with dyslexia and ADHD who struggle with traditional reading, at an affordable $8/month on the annual plan. Reazy includes a Chrome extension, web app, and mobile apps. I have no funding. I’ve been self-funding this from savings for three years.

The Timeline

I submitted my Apple Developer enrollment on January 30, 2026. Got approved and paid my $99 on February 9. I submitted my app for review. Apple came back with changes — Guideline 4.8 (Sign in with Apple) and Guideline 3.1.1 (in-app purchase requirements). I fixed everything they asked for. I was on my third round of revisions. I was expecting approval. The same app is live on Google Play with no issues.

On February 26, I got a notice of termination.

Here’s what the notice said:

Apple has good reason to believe that you violated this Section due to documented indications of fraudulent conduct associated with your account. Apple is exercising its right to terminate your status as an Apple developer pursuant to the Apple Developer Agreement and is terminating you under the ADP Agreement for dishonest and fraudulent acts relating to that agreement.

…Finally, please note that we will deny your reapplication…for at least a year considering the nature of your acts.

Fraudulent conduct. My app wasn’t even on the store yet. I never made a dollar. There were no users. What fraud could I possibly have committed? Look at what they cited — Section 3.2(f). That’s about “actions that may hinder the performance or intended use of the App Store.” That’s not about scamming users. That’s about interfering with Apple’s systems — which is exactly what automated form-filling would look like to their fraud detection.

The Gut Punch

This was a gut punch. It made me physically ill.

I had to get up from my desk and pace around. My heart was racing. I didn’t sleep well. The next day when I woke up, I was just wide awake from cortisol at 7 am. And I skipped breakfast and sat down and frantically planned for five straight hours working through what to do about it.

Three years of work, potentially gone because of a false positive. I was so stressed my nervous system locked into fight-or-flight and I became overcome with nausea and physically couldn’t eat. It wasn’t until I vomited that my body finally reset and I could get food down.

55-60% of US smartphone users are on iOS. Terminating my developer account means cutting off the majority of the students who need this tool.

What I Think Happened

Apple never tells you why they terminate your account. My best guess is that I was using Claude Cowork — a research preview feature built into Anthropic’s Claude Desktop app, available to all paid plan users — to help with my final app submission. It’s a legitimate, officially supported tool. As a developer, you’re always experimenting with new technologies. AI has changed how code gets written dramatically over the past year, and you can’t afford to fall behind.

Anyone who’s used App Store Connect knows it’s a maze of forms and guidelines. I was on my third iteration of revisions — Cowork was helping me fill in fields. That’s the only thing I can think of that would’ve triggered their fraud detection. These automated checks exist for people who mass-create scam apps. Not solo developers submitting their first app for review.

The Kafkaesque Appeal Process

It’s funny — the termination email includes a link to contact them. But when I tried to use it, I needed a developer account to submit the appeal. The one they just terminated.

I did submit a request to review the case through the Apple ID I was using for the developer account, but I never heard back.

The Numbers Are Damning

Apple’s 2024 Transparency Report (published May 2025):

• 146,747 developer accounts terminated in 2024 over fraud concerns
• 139,000 developer enrollments rejected before they could even submit apps
• ~8,000 developers appealed their termination
• Only 225 developers were restored — that’s a 2.8% reinstatement rate

And this isn’t just my read on the situation. Phillip Shoemaker, the former head of App Store Review, publicly stated in November 2025:

“Developers are being terminated on suspicion of fraud, with no meaningful evidence shared, no clear appeal process, and in many cases, Apple holding hundreds of thousands — even millions — of dollars in unpaid revenue.”

He said the number of erroneous termination cases is growing every week. He sent a letter to Tim Cook about it. No action taken.

I’m Not the Only One

I’m not the first developer this has happened to.

Dr. Paris Buttfield-Addison is a Tasmania-based computer scientist who co-founded an award-winning game development company and has literally written the book on Apple development (20+ books for O’Reilly Media on Swift, Objective-C, and iOS). He helps run the longest-running Apple developer event not run by Apple themselves. In December 2025, his entire Apple ID was terminated — likely triggered by a gift card purchase flagging their fraud system. He was signed out of iMessage, locked out of iCloud, lost access to terabytes of family photos, and his devices couldn’t sync or update. Apple’s advice? “Just create a new account” — which he noted could get him permanently blacklisted. It took press coverage from Daring Fireball, AppleInsider, and others before Apple’s Executive Relations team even looked at it.

You can read his full story here.

For American developers, the real appeal process is this: make enough noise that a human actually looks at your case. That’s it. That’s the system.

European Developers Have More Rights Than American Developers

European developers have more protections than American ones. Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, platforms like Apple are required to explain why they terminate an account and provide a real appeals process — including access to independent out-of-court dispute resolution bodies. Since the DSA took effect, 30% of appealed platform decisions across the EU have been reversed. Out-of-court settlement bodies have overturned platform decisions in 52% of cases they’ve reviewed. Apple even has a dedicated DSA redress page for EU developers. In the US, we have none of that. Apple’s reinstatement rate here is 2.8%. The EU figured out that when you give people a real appeals process, a lot of these terminations turn out to be wrong.

⚠️ A Warning to Fellow Developers

The purpose of this post is twofold.

First, a warning to fellow developers: if you’re using AI tools, use extreme caution on App Store Connect. Apple may flag it as bot traffic and terminate your account without explanation.

Second, I’m asking for your help. If enough people see this, maybe I can get a human at Apple to actually look at my case.

How You Can Help

Email Tim Cook: tcook@apple.com

Clicking this link opens your email with a pre-written message. You can edit or send as-is.

Share this post — the more people who see it, the better the odds.

Follow the story: @ReazyReader on X

Case ID: 102831495509

Developer email: ben@reazy.pro

The app: reazy.pro

The tool that probably got me banned: Claude Cowork

All I’m asking for is a human review of my case.