AI-powered ‘vibe-coding’ is filling our app stores with garbage

Apps created by AI are pouring in to Apple’s App Store, but no one appears to be actually downloading them. And unless platform-holders find a way to adjust their policies, these “vibe-coded” products are likely to hurt authentic developers and consumers alike, along with the platforms themselves.

Thanks to AI models that can code, non-technical users can now whip up functioning software in a week, or even in an afternoon, which would previously have required specialist programming know-how. This so-called vibe-coding is sometimes hailed as a democratisation of creative and productive tools.

But while it has been adopted as a sort of sidekick by skilled programmers, and deployed by well-meaning hobbyists looking for a niche custom solution, it has also become the bane of any open code repository or community programming project, as anyone can now create and submit code without the faintest idea of how it works.

Of course, grifters have descended on the largest app stores with apps designed to make a quick buck, which in some cases are riddled with issues. You can now pay a monthly fee for access to platforms that use the latest AI models to turn any thought you have into something you can submit to Apple, complete with the app itself, images, descriptions, documentations, and analytics to track your income.

Data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower shows that for the full year of 2025, there were around 600,000 new apps appearing on Apple’s App Store, a significant year-on-year increase of 30 per cent with volume increasing each quarter. The firm’s latest numbers indicate that there were 560,000 new apps just in the first half of this year, suggesting at least a doubling for 2026 in total.

And this is only estimating the number of new apps allowed onto the store. Presumably the number of apps rejected by Apple and others have grown by at least as much. For Apple’s part, it disallows apps that are essentially repackaged web content, apps that are buggy, leaky or unoptimised, and apps that generate and run their own code. In my experience, that would block many vibe-coded apps.

Even if we accept that it’s possible for non-technical users to make safe, useful apps, the huge amount of quickly thrown-together offerings challenges the traditional app store vetting process.

The role of platform-holders shifts from curators of quality software, to security guards that need to check an impossibly large and accelerating stream of garbage for stuff that could hurt customers, undermine trust or even damage devices.

For Apple, and other platform holders, the dangers of this boom in vibe-coded apps are clear:

1. Software created with AI is designed to make a good first impression and to appear to be doing what it says, but it’s notorious for breaking in real-world conditions. If a developer does not understand security, the worst-case scenarios are privacy gaps, personal information leaking, and software exploits that allow bad actors into people’s phones.
2. The huge influx of low-quality apps is a drain on the platform’s resources. Commenters on mobile development subreddits have noted a lengthening in the amount of time Apple takes to approve apps and updates recently. That means legitimate apps are delayed, and the chances increase of a potentially problematic app being allowed through.
3. Non-technical creators want to vibe-code apps for smartphones, using their smartphones. Apple has guidelines against this (as using apps to install other apps or update with new code circumvents the company’s safety checks) and it has already cracked down on some iPhone vibe coding platforms. But the situation puts pressure on the core idea of the App Store.
4. App stores only make money from apps if they cost money, or they offer in-app purchases or subscriptions. Very few vibe-coded apps will do that, since it’s an extra and very complicated step. More likely they’ll monetise with ads, off-platform payments or links to tip jars, which is a poorer user experience and nets Apple nothing.
5. In addition to the security concerns, vibe-coded apps are infamous for being fussy to update. Since the creator doesn’t understand how they work, they can be broken over time or by an operating system update. This means that although the apps could start off seeming fine, they could end up abandoned, deprecated, incompatible or at worst dangerously unstable.

So what impact is this having right now? Well, it certainly hasn’t brought people flocking to the App Store to see what these new apps are like. The Sensor Tower data showed app downloads increased only 3 per cent last year and 2 per cent in the first half of 2026.

But any method that people previously used to discuss and discover interesting new apps has become significantly less useful this year, with a search for any app topic now producing hundreds of similar results.

Commenters on online forums are frequently questioning whether new apps being promoted are vibe coded, or complaining that they don’t work or don’t do what they say. Like AI-generated images, video and text, vibe-coded apps tend to be a blend of copies of existing works, but with creative and design decisions that don’t make sense.

Some developer communities on Reddit have started pushing any app that doesn’t have markers of being human-coded (reviews, code repositories, a verifiable developer) onto a separate thread to remove the noise, and telling contributors that they must declare if their app is AI-coded, so visitors can filter them out if they choose to.

Frankly, the likes of Apple should consider doing the same.

Get news and reviews on technology, gadgets and gaming in our Technology newsletter every Friday. Sign up here.