Publishing an AI-built app on the App Store and Google Play

It all depends on what the tool generated. Lovable and Bolt most often produce a web application, which opens in a browser. Rork generates a React Native project with Expo, which is a real mobile app. With Cursor, you choose the technology yourself.

The difference matters: the App Store and Google Play do not accept a web address, they accept a compiled and signed application file. A React Native project compiles as it is. A web application first has to become a mobile app, either wrapped in a native shell or rebuilt in React Native.

Apple rejects apps that only display a website and add nothing to it: this is rule 4.2 of its guidelines, known as "minimum functionality". For a simple web app, the shell is rarely enough. It takes features that belong on a phone, such as notifications, the camera or offline use.

• Apple Developer Program: 99 dollars a year. You also need a Mac to compile the app, or an online build service.
• Google Play Console: 25 dollars, paid once.

On Google Play, a personal account created since November 2023 must first have the app tested by at least 12 people for 14 days in a row before it can be published to everyone. A company account skips this step. Plan for it in your schedule.

Create these accounts in your own name or your company's: the app and its users belong to you, not to your contractor.

• An online privacy policy, and the forms that declare the data collected: privacy labels at Apple, the "Data safety" section at Google.
• Account deletion: if people can create an account in the app, they must be able to delete it from the app. Google also asks for a web page to do it.
• A demo account: if the app requires a sign-in, the review team must be able to get in.
• Payments: selling digital content or a digital subscription goes, as a rule, through Apple's in-app purchase and Google Play's billing. A card payment inside the app for something digital is a classic reason for rejection. Physical goods and services are paid through a regular payment provider.
• Sign-in: if you offer "Sign in with Google", Apple also asks for an equivalent option that protects privacy, in practice "Sign in with Apple".
• A complete app: no empty screen, no placeholder content, no crash at launch. This is a very common reason for rejection.

Before sending the app to review, four points deserve a developer's eye, because they do not show on screen.

• API keys in the app code: anything inside the app can be read by someone who decompiles it. Secret keys belong on a server.
• Database access rules: without them, a signed-in user can read or change other people's data.
• Accounts and payments: email confirmation, password reset, a subscription checked on the server and not only in the app.
• Stability on real phones: slow network, offline mode, older models, the back button on Android.

Each store asks for a listing: name, description, keywords, screenshots in the right sizes, icon, age rating. Google Play adds a feature graphic. A careful listing matters as much as the app: it is what people see before they download.

Then comes the review. Allow a few days, and one round trip if a point is rejected: the rejection comes with the rule concerned, you fix it, you send it again.

With the AI-built app rescue, we review the code, hand over a written report, fix security, crashes and payments, then publish the app: from €2,900 excl. VAT, in 1 to 3 weeks.

If your app is already solid and only the release is missing, App Store and Google Play publishing covers the accounts, listings, screenshots, forms and submission: €990 excl. VAT, fixed price.

And if the prototype mostly served to validate the idea, starting again from a clean base is sometimes faster. That is what the app launch is for.