There has been an abundance of sketchy virus scanning apps on the iOS App Store for quite some time now and Apple is finally clamping down on these low-quality apps. The company has updated its developer app review guidelines for iOS. The new guidelines also limit how developers can use Face ID on the iPhone X.
Apple did remove many of these sketchy apps from the App Store earlier this year but the new guidelines will go a long way in ensuring that such apps don’t make it on to the App Store in the first place.
The new guidelines ban apps that claim to “including content or services that it does not actually offer.” This is true when it comes to these sketchy virus scanning apps for iPhones and iPads.
It’s not possible to scan for viruses on iOS with third-party apps. That’s because the sandboxing on iOS doesn’t allow apps to directly interact with each other or the core iOS operating system.
Developers who are looking to tap into the iPhone X’s Face ID facial recognition system have to provide an alternate method of unlocking for children under 13 years of age. This is also included in the updated guidelines for developers.