Founded by Steve Jobs apple It was introduced 50 years ago this week with the simple idea of democratizing computing by putting personal computers in everyone’s hands. Now, Apple is going against its founding mission by standing in the way of what could be the most empowering tool for ordinary people in software history: AI coding, or vibecoding.
Apple should lead this moment. Rather, it is suppressed.
Apple has blocked at least two vibe coding apps, including Replit, from updating on the App Store and removed one, citing safety concerns. Apple says it wants more people to be able to develop apps. But by blocking its most popular and accessible tools, the company is abandoning its founding spirit and risks turning the next generation of builders away from the iPhone.
Why is this different?
Vibe coding apps like Replit allow people with no coding experience to build a working app by simply explaining what they want. You can create, preview, and test new apps all within Replit without Apple seeing. If you want to list it on the App Store, you still need to go through Apple’s review process. But Apple’s concern is what happens before that happens. Within Replit, users can build and run software that has never been approved by Apple reviewers, and that software can reside in the browser without Apple review.
Apple is fiercely protective of its App Store. This review process is how Apple screens apps for malware, privacy violations, and unauthorized access to sensitive data such as camera, contacts, and location information. That’s a big reason why people trust iPhone. Although Apple operates a closed and tightly controlled ecosystem, it has google Play Store is more open and tolerant.
However, anything created by a Replit user will not be installed on your phone. This is displayed within the app using the same web technology. facebook The X is used every time you tap a link. Apple has never blocked these apps from displaying unreviewed web content.
Apple insists that this is not a crackdown, but merely consistent enforcement of rules that have existed for years. The company cites the rule’s fine print that says the rule does not apply to other apps with similar functionality. For example, Anthropic’s Claude allows users to build, preview, and use apps, but within the app rather than in the browser like Replit. (Two other popular AI coding tools, Cursor and Lovable, don’t have iOS apps.) And Apple isn’t opposed to AI-assisted coding. The company added AI tools from OpenAI and Anthropic to its development software, Xcode, in February, just weeks after blocking Replit updates.
Apple has long struggled with threats to its walled garden. It fought with Epic Games over payment rails, resisted EU sideloading obligations and clashed with Tencent over WeChat’s mini-app ecosystem. In both cases, Apple was protecting its stores from companies trying to break through its walls.
Vibe coding does not need to be punched through. It can just be walked around. Developers can simply use Replit in a browser on their computer instead of an iPhone app. Even if it would be more convenient to use an app.
The stakes are real for Apple. The App Store is the central toll for a services business that generated $109 billion in revenue last year, with a gross profit margin of more than 75%, nearly double the profit Apple makes selling its products. Apple takes a 15-30% commission on every purchase made within the App Store. But every app that goes to the web (apps that open in a browser) instead of the store brings in revenue that Apple will never see.
Furthermore, if the discussion is really about safety, blocking Replit updates won’t make your app any safer. Banning it completely should be the solution.
Democratizing coding
The scale of Vibe Coding’s excellence is already noticeable. This market barely existed 18 months ago. Today, the companies building these tools are worth billions of dollars.
And the effects are showing up in Apple’s own backyard. App Store releases jumped 60% year over year, with more than 550,000 apps sold last year, the highest in a decade, according to data from Sensor Tower and Wells Fargo compiled by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. But that’s just a fraction of what’s currently being built. The vast majority of vibe-coded software exists on the open web and does not go through Apple’s review process. In other words, we’re filling Apple’s store while building an alternative to it.
Apple’s strongest counterargument is that the Vibe Coding app does exactly what Xcode does: you’re welcome to build on your Mac, submit it through reviews, and distribute it through the Store.
But this answer reveals a gap in Apple’s thinking. The people using Replit are not professional developers using Xcode on Mac. They are first-time builders.
British graphic designer Ruth Heathman has been dreaming up ideas for websites and apps for the past 20 years. Last year, Replit finally made that possible with the introduction of agent coding agents.
“I’m not a programmer. I had no prior experience. It’s hard to get coders and programmers to spend their time,” she said.
Heathman estimates he has published 12 websites and added payment options, and recently launched his first iOS app with the help of Replit. This is an augmented reality game about ghost hunting.
“I think I would have really struggled to do this before Replit because I didn’t have an Apple Mac,” she said. “This is one of the true walled-in requirements of the App Store.”
The whole point of vibe coding is meeting people where they are. Apple’s response is to go elsewhere.
groping for the future
If this is an intentional platform strategy, Apple’s execution has been inconsistent.
People familiar with Replit’s dealings with Apple say the company has changed its reasons for the hold multiple times since January, and that Replit has filed new objections after previous ones. Apple said its App Review team maintains consistent communication with Replit, having had three phone conversations in the past two months.
Replit was unable to update its iOS app during that time. We went from #1 to #4 in Developer Tools on the App Store. Replit lost revenue during this period, said a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
Replit said in a statement that the app has been on the App Store since 2022 and that Apple has approved apps with the same functionality it currently blocks more than 100 times.
“We are surprised and disappointed that Apple blocked the release of the update, given that we have been using the platform according to Apple’s rules for years,” the company said.
From the outside looking in, Apple looks like a company arguing with itself. There’s no one at the top to reconcile the two, with the App Store team profiting from the surge in Vibecoding posts and the developer tools team not wanting to compete with Xcode. Since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, the stock has underperformed every megacap except Microsoft.
why you should care
This is important beyond developer tools because vibecoding will happen whether Apple allows it on iOS or not. The question is not whether a new wave of software will be built, but whether it will be built inside Apple’s ecosystem or outside of it.
Rebecca Ho Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt University, said economists have long observed that monopolies encourage competition on their platforms, up to a point.
“They want to control the direction of innovation from things that disrupt their monopoly,” she says.
If Apple continues to block these tools, developers may simply leave. They’re built on and for the web, and no one needs Apple’s permission to ship them. iPhone users may end up with an even worse app ecosystem as Apple kicks out the people who filled it.
Apple has been here before. In the 1990s, Microsoft locked down its own hardware while opening up PCs to everyone. It was existential. Jobs came back and saved the company by doing what Apple does best: empowering users rather than restricting them.
The company that was founded on putting power in the hands of the people is now trying to take it back.
Watch: Experimenting with AI vibecoding
