Guideline 2.5 Software Requirements: background modes, HealthKit and code you didn't mean to ship

Guideline 2.5 sits in the Performance section — the section Apple's 2025 Transparency Report cites in 1,354,418 rejections, more than Safety, Business, Design, Legal and Other put together. Most of those are Guideline 2.1 and Guideline 2.3; 2.5 is the technical part. Its 16 active rules, in short:

Reviewers check the UIBackgroundModes key in your Info.plist against what the app actually does. Declare audio without a feature that plays sound in the background and you get this, quoted from a developer's rejection:

Location gets the same treatment, with a twist: the feature has to serve the user. In a December 2024 rejection, Apple wrote that “using the location background mode for the sole purpose of tracking employees is not appropriate” — even with consent.

The surprise is how often nobody chose the mode on purpose. Expo's expo-audio config plugin adds audio to UIBackgroundModes by default; after an app was rejected in September 2026, a pull request proposed making it opt-in. Starter templates, copied Xcode capabilities and old experiments do the same.

Apple's background execution guide says to “use background execution modes sparingly” and to use an alternative when one exists. If you keep a mode, tell the reviewer exactly how to trigger the feature: both rejections above say the reviewer was “unable to locate” or “did not include” it.

2.5.1 says apps “should use APIs and frameworks for their intended purposes and indicate that integration in their app description”, and that “HealthKit should be used for health and fitness purposes and integrate with the Health app.” Two rejections show the two ways indie apps fail it:

For the second case, an Apple engineer's advice on the forum was to “make sure that you didn't accidentally enable the HealthKit entitlement” under Signing & Capabilities. For the first, Apple's HealthKit privacy documentation requires the use to be “clear in both your marketing text and your user interface”, and the HIG offers the simplest visual signal: “The Apple Health icon shows that an app works with HealthKit and the Health app.” Use only Apple's icon.

Apps may not “download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps.” Rejections developers have posted include “The app installed or launched executable code. Specifically, the app uses the itms-services URL scheme to install an app” (May 2024) and “your app downloaded code that changes your app's behavior or functionality” (August 2022).

The strongest version targets code built to change behaviour after approval — passing arbitrary values to methods like dlopen() or performSelector:, or running remote scripts. One such 2019 rejection warned that the next submission “may require a longer review time” and that the app “will not be eligible for an expedited review until this issue is resolved.” Feature flags that switch between features already in the reviewed build are a different thing; new behaviour delivered from a server is what the rule is about.

The settings that trigger 2.5.4 and 2.5.1 live in the compiled app, not in your memory of the project. Read them from the archive Xcode just built — after every SDK update, too:

# Point APP at the .app inside your latest archive
APP="$HOME/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/2026-10-09/MyApp.xcarchive/Products/Applications/MyApp.app"

# Background modes the app declares (error = none declared)
plutil -extract UIBackgroundModes json -o - "$APP/Info.plist"

# Capabilities it's signed with (look for HealthKit, HomeKit, etc.)
codesign -d --entitlements - "$APP"

# Third-party frameworks that might add either
ls "$APP/Frameworks"

1. 01

   Decide: remove or reveal

   If the mode or capability isn't needed, remove it and upload a new build. If it is, make the feature easy to find and explain it.

2. 02

   Find who added it

   Check config plugins, SDK setup guides and the Signing & Capabilities tab. Remove it at the source, or the next update will bring it back.

3. 03

   Upload a new build

   Info.plist keys, entitlements and code are in the binary, so 2.5 rejections can't be fixed in metadata alone.

4. 04

   Reply with exact steps

   If you kept the feature, tell the reviewer how to trigger it, step by step, and attach a short screen recording.

Hello App Review team,

Thank you for the feedback on Guideline 2.5.4.

[If removed]
The "audio" background mode was added by a dependency and is not used.
We removed it from UIBackgroundModes in build [number].

[If kept]
The app plays [guided workout audio] while in the background.
To verify: [open the app > Workouts > start any workout > lock the
device]. Audio cues continue every [30 seconds]. A screen recording
is attached in App Review Information.

Thank you,
[Name]