Apple rewrote its App Store rules three weeks ago to finally mean it on nudify apps. It may already be losing.
A WIRED investigation published Monday, detailed by AppleInsider, found more than 400 connected apps and web domains smuggling sexually explicit deepfake generators past review on the App Store and Google Play — disguised as AI pet portrait makers, language tutors, and workout coaches. One of them, Viefur, an AI pet portrait generator that turned animal photos into humanlike characters, carried tools for placing real people into sexually explicit and violent scenes.
The trick was server-side cloaking. Each app phoned home after installation, sending the user's language, referral source, and a unique identifier; a remote server then decided which version the user saw. Reviewers got a black screen or a harmless photo utility. Users who arrived through one of thousands of ads on Facebook and Instagram got the hidden web interface — dozens of explicit templates, uploadable photos, and digital credits purchased through Apple Pay and Google Pay, according to Digital Trends.
Scale is the story. Researchers identified 27 related apps live on Google Play in September with more than 350,000 combined downloads — many rated suitable for all ages. One app, DiffAI, passed 100,000 installs. The nonprofit AI Forensics and Infoblox traced the shared JavaScript configs, encryption keys, and ad trackers to Chinese-language codebases and a Hong Kong-registered company, KeLing Technology Limited, which scrubbed its online presence after WIRED's inquiry. At the network's peak it was registering up to 30 new domain-and-app combinations per week.
Apple removed 19 apps, including Viefur, after reporters shared the findings. Apple spokesperson Adam Dema said the apps complied with App Store rules during their initial reviews — developers later changed the content on their servers, replacing approved material with pornography. Google had pulled most of its listings before WIRED called. Meta says it banned KeLing from advertising in 2025 and has since taken action against 11,600 ad accounts, 5,200 users, and blocked 209 apps tied to the scheme, per Silicon Report.
The structural problem is that App Store review is a point-in-time check, and these apps are live services whose behavior can change on a remote server without a new submission. Apple told reporters it suspended tens of thousands of apps over the past year for similar bait-and-switch tactics. Its October 16 guideline update — Guideline 1.2 now names AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery outright — can't catch a switch that happens after approval.
What to watch: the EU's ban on nudifier apps takes effect next month, and WIRED reports similar ads were still resurfacing as the investigation wrapped. The network doesn't need the App Store to survive — it just needs the next 30 listings a week.
— via AppleInsider