If you have opened the age rating questionnaire in App Store Connect this month, there is a new section in it. Apple wants to know whether your app has social media capabilities. You can no longer skip it. Since September, an answer is required for new apps, for updates, and for apps you notarize for distribution outside the App Store.

The questions appeared on July 9, with a two-month grace period. That period is over. This is the thing that will stall a submission you thought was ready, because the build uploads fine and the block is on the metadata side.

What counts as social media

Apple's definition is one sentence, and it is broader than “Instagram clone”:

A social media capability is the ability to redistribute, amplify, or interact with user-generated content through a social feed or similar discovery method.

Read the verbs. Redistribute, amplify, interact. A feed where people can see other people's posts and react to them is in. A comment thread under content is probably in. A share button that hands a screenshot to the system share sheet is not, because there is no feed on your side.

If you answer yes, three things happen:

  • Your product page shows a new Social Media content descriptor.
  • Your app falls into the Social Media category for Time Allowances, the new parental control in iOS 27 that lets parents set time budgets by category, regardless of the category you picked in App Store Connect.
  • Your rating becomes 13+.

There is one exception. If the social features exist but are disabled for anyone under 13, the app is not put in the under-13 Time Allowance bucket. That exception is the difference between “we have a community tab” and “we lost every family with kids under 13.” If your app has a feed and an age gate, the age gate has to be real, and you have to answer the questionnaire with that gate in mind.

What the answer is for my own apps

Neither of my apps on the store has a feed. Monetra tracks money. Sera scans skin and builds a routine. Nobody's content is shown to anybody else. The honest answer is no.

You still have to go in and give it. That is the part I want you to hear. The questionnaire does not default to no. It waits. If the last thing you did in App Store Connect was in June, your next update will sit until you open the age rating section and click through.

I have been on the wrong side of metadata holds before, when my first submission was rejected eight times and again when my privacy policy was a PDF instead of a URL. Those were all things I could have fixed in five minutes if I had known they were being checked. This is the same kind of thing. Five minutes now, or a rejection email later.

Two other September items worth knowing

Minimum SDK moves in April 2027. Starting then, uploads to App Store Connect must be built with the iOS 27, iPadOS 27, tvOS 27, watchOS 27, or visionOS 27 SDK. If your Flutter or React Native toolchain pins an older Xcode, that is a dependency upgrade to schedule, not a surprise to have.

Guideline 4.3(b) got sharper in June. Apple now names the categories it will not accept more of without a meaningfully different experience: dating, flashlight, sound effects, wallpaper, simple timers, fortune telling. It also says existing low-quality apps in saturated categories may be removed if they are not updated, improved, or attracting customers. If you have an old utility on the store that you stopped touching, this is the guideline that could take it down.

The check before you submit

Open App Store Connect. App Information. Age Rating. Edit. Scroll until you see the social media questions. Answer them. Save.

Then submit. Do it in that order, or the review will do it for you.

Sources: Apple Developer News, “Age rating questionnaire now includes social media questions,” July 9, 2026, and the September 9, 2026 submissions update. MacRumors on the June 2026 App Review Guidelines changes.