Anything plans desktop app after Apple removes it from the App Store

In short: After being removed from Apple’s App Store twice, the app builder Anything says it will shift focus to a desktop companion app and other workarounds.

What happened

Anything is a “vibe coding” app, meaning it helps people create apps by describing what they want in plain language, with AI doing much of the coding work. The company says Apple removed Anything from the App Store on March 26, briefly restored it on April 3, and then removed it again.

Anything co-founder Dhruv Amin told TechCrunch the iPhone app was mainly meant to let users preview the iOS apps they were building on their own phones during development. He said the company had “no problems through December,” but after that, updates started getting blocked, both for Anything and for other apps in the same category.

Apple pointed to a rule in its developer agreement, clause 2.5.2. In simple terms, Apple does not want iPhone apps to download and run new code on the fly (like letting an app change its behavior after approval). Apple also told Anything, according to a screenshot the company shared on X, that it could not market itself as an iPhone app maker.

Amin said Apple also raised security concerns, including the risk that someone could use an app builder to create harmful software and try to pass it off as something Apple approved.

Why it matters

Many people want tools that let them make small apps for themselves, like building a custom spreadsheet. This dispute shows how much control app stores have over what these tools can do on iPhones. Anything says it will respond by building a desktop companion app for creating mobile apps, adding an iMessage-based building feature, and possibly focusing more on Android, which it says is more open.

Source: TechCrunch AI