Guideline 2.1(a): “We were unable to review your app as it did not load”

Apple's words

What it means

Guideline 2.1(a) is about completeness. The reviewer never got past the first screen, so nothing else was looked at.

Check the device line. Ours named an iPad, “iPad Air 11-inch (M3)”, for iPhone apps. Guideline 2.4.1 says “iPhone apps should run on iPad whenever possible.”

A crash log is a clue, not the answer. Ours pointed at the wrong part of the app.

What caused it for us

A blank screen, or a logo that never went away, hit 5 of our apps, 6 or more times, from four separate faults in how the first or splash screen was drawn.

One of them was rejected twice: our own iPad test had used an older iPadOS than the reviewer's.

Crash on launch: 2 rejections, 1 app. A package that starts with the app threw an error; the second rejection came on another device after the first fix worked.

From about 20 of our own rejections across 8 apps. A guide to what to check first, not a rate for everyone.

What to check first

1. Copy the device, OS version and any crash log out of Apple's message.
2. Install the exact build you sent, from TestFlight, on an iPad running the latest iPadOS you have access to.
3. Open it fresh and note what you see: a white screen, a logo that stays, or a crash.
4. Can't make it fail? Don't guess. Tell Apple what you tested and ask what the reviewer saw.
5. Before you resubmit: “Don't submit for review without testing your app's behavior in compatibility modes.”

Kept for the paid guide

These three parts are in the paid guide only:

• The exact App Store Connect clicks. Every click from Apple's message to the Notes field of your resubmission.
• The prompt to paste into your AI builder. A prompt that makes your builder reproduce the failure on the reviewer's device and name the cause before it changes code.
• The reply to Apple. A reply that tells Apple which build fixes what, the device you tested on and what the first screen now shows.