A refusal from App Store review arrives as a requirement number and a sentence. It tells you which rule the listing failed and almost nothing about which image failed it. This is the list of what that number usually means, and what to change.

A number on the feature image

The most common one, because a number is the first thing anybody wants on a hero image. Requirement 4.3.4:

Don't use stats, data, or unsubstantiated claims such as guarantees in images.

"Used by 10,000 merchants". "Saves 4 hours a week". "99.9% uptime". "Guaranteed to increase conversion". All refused, and the rule does not distinguish between a figure you invented and one you can prove with a dashboard. Naming the merchant a number came from does not exempt it either.

The fix. Draw the feature that produced the number. A feature does not have to substantiate itself: a picture of the rule that recovers an abandoned cart says the same thing as the recovery rate, and it is allowed.

A browser window in a screenshot

Requirement 4.4.4 is explicit about this:

Images should primarily show your app's actual user interface and features. Screenshots must not include desktop backgrounds or browser windows.

What trips it is usually habit rather than intent. Somebody captured the admin in a browser, kept the tab strip and the address bar because they prove it is real, and put a soft shadow under the window on a desktop photograph.

The fix. Crop to the interface. No chrome, no wallpaper, no floating window. The image is about the app, not around it.

The second sentence of 4.4.4:

Feature images and screenshots that solely contain your app logo are not permitted.

This catches the title card - the first slot spent on a wordmark on a brand colour, the way a deck opens. Your logo is welcome where it is genuinely part of the interface being shown. It is refused as the whole content of an image.

The fix. Spend the first slot on what the app does. The feature image is the one that travels into search results and category pages, and a wordmark there says nothing a merchant did not already read in the app name above it.

Six crops of one screen

Requirement 4.4.5:

Each image in your app listing must be unique. Screenshots should showcase different features, views, or states of your app.

Don't submit duplicate or near-identical images.

An app with one screen fills six slots by zooming into six corners of it. That is one image submitted six times, and it is exactly what the requirement was written for.

The fix. Find six different things to say: a feature, a view, a state, the storefront side, the checkout side, the setup. If the app genuinely has fewer than six, submit fewer. The minimum is three screenshots, not six.

A price, anywhere

Pricing does not belong in a listing image, and the icon counts as a listing image. A tier badge in the corner of a screenshot is enough.

The fix. Pricing lives in the pricing section of the listing, where a merchant expects it and where it can be kept correct without redrawing an image.

A star rating or a testimonial

A review quoted on an image is caught twice: requirement 4.3.6 keeps reviews and testimonials out of the listing, and 4.3.4 keeps statistics out of the images. A five-star row is both at once.

The fix. Reviews already appear on your listing, written by the merchants who left them. Repeating them in your own images adds nothing that the page does not carry natively.

Why this list is short

Almost every refusal is one of six things, and five of them are decided before anybody opens a design tool. That is worth saying plainly: the images are not usually refused for being ugly. They are refused for carrying a claim, hiding the interface, or repeating themselves.

A set drawn against the requirements passes on the first submission, and the review queue is not a place you want to spend a second week.