Apple’s updated App Store rules go after ‘nudify’ AI apps

<figure> <img alt="A mannequin’s face covered in pixels." data-caption="" data-portal-copyright="Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/STK419_DEEPFAKE_3_CVIRGINIA_B.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;crop=0,0,100,100" /> <figcaption> </figcaption> </figure> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Apple's App Store rules now more explicitly ban so-called "nudify" apps that generate intimate images of people without their consent using AI tools.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The rule changes follow <a href="https://www.theverge.com/policy/859902/apple-google-run-by-cowards">significant criticism</a> toward Apple after X users used Grok earlier this year to make nonconsensual, sexualized deepfakes, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/853191/grok-explicit-bikini-pictures-minors">including minors</a>. Apple didn't pull X or Grok from the App Store, though it <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/apple-threat-remove-grok-app-store-deepfake-letter-musk-x-ai-rcna331677">told senators that it threatened to yank Grok</a>. At Apple's WWDC event in June, protestors also <a href="https://www.theverge.com/tech/945813/apple-wwdc-protesters-deepfake-nude-apps-ultraviolet-heat-initiative">called on Apple</a> to "remove Grok, X, and all nudify technology from the App Store," and in July, a San Francisco city attorney <a href="https://www.theverge.com/tech/967041/apple-and-google-ordered-to-take-down-ai-nudify-apps">ordered Apple</a> to remove 13 "nudify" apps, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/tech/967623/apple-confirms-it-took-down-ai-nudify-apps">which it said …</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/tech/1013314/apple-app-store-nudify-ai-apps-harassment">Read the full story at The Verge.</a></p>