What Apple allows in an App Store app preview
An app preview is not a trailer. Apple reviews it against one idea: it has to show the app as it will look on the viewer's own device, playing full screen. Most rejections are for footage that would be unremarkable on any other platform.
What gets a preview rejected
Under guideline 2.3.4, reviewers name these specifically:
- Framing around the screen capture — borders, mattes, anything that is not the app.
- Device images or device frames, including a phone mockup with the app inside it.
- A narrator on camera. Voice-over is fine; a person in the picture is not.
- Real hands, holding or tapping the device.
- Footage that is not the app in use — b-roll, a person at a desk, a location.
What is allowed
Screen capture of the app, full frame. Narration over it. Text overlays for clarity. That is the whole permitted vocabulary, and it is enough: the overlay is where you explain what the viewer is looking at.
The trap for camera apps
If your app puts a camera picture on the screen, the recording legitimately contains a person — that is the app's own output, not outside footage. A reviewer cannot tell the difference from a still frame. Keep some of the app's own interface visible during those stretches, or add a text overlay saying what is happening, so the frame reads as the app rather than as film.
Screenshots follow a different rule
Guideline 2.3.3 governs screenshots, and it is looser: device frames are allowed there. What it requires is that the majority of the screenshots show the app in use. Marketing panels with a headline and three bullets are the minority at best, and a splash or idle screen does not count as in use.
Recording one that passes
Record the app on a device at the size the store expects, with no camera overlay from a second app and nothing composited around the frame. Keep it between fifteen and thirty seconds. Say what is happening rather than showing someone saying it.
Can I use a simulator recording?
Yes, as long as it looks like the app running on a device and the dimensions match what the store accepts.
Is a text overlay really allowed?
Yes — the guidance names narration and text overlays as acceptable additions for clarity.
They rejected it but said it can wait. What does that mean?
Metadata issues are often marked as fixable in your next update. Reply to the message and the current build can be approved as it is.
