Why Apple is asking
iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 introduce Time Allowances, a parental control that sets how much time children spend in apps by category: Entertainment, Games and Social Media. Entertainment and Games follow the primary or secondary category you choose in App Store Connect. Social Media is different: it depends on what your app does, whatever its category.
What counts as a social media capability
Apple’s definition is “the ability to redistribute, amplify, or interact with user-generated content through a social feed or similar discovery method that visibly spreads content to many users.” The important words are “feed” and “many users”. Here is how we would read it for a few common cases, though Apple’s view of your app is the one that counts:
- A public feed where people post, like and comment: yes.
- A discovery screen that shows other people’s creations to everyone: very likely yes.
- Sending a result to Messages or Instagram through the share sheet: most likely not, because the app itself does not spread it to many users.
- A private space shared by two people, such as a couple: most likely not, for the same reason.
If the answer is yes, there are two options
- Answer yes. The app goes into the Social Media Time Allowance category, gets a Social Media content descriptor on its product page and receives a minimum age rating of 13+.
- Turn the social features off for under-13s. The app is then left out of the Social Media category for those users, but you must use, at a minimum, the Declared Age Range API to check age ranges. Your age rating then comes from your other answers and can be lower than 13+. For people aged 13 and over, the app stays in the Social Media category.
The deadline has passed
The questions appeared in July 2026 and became required in September 2026 for new apps, updates, and notarization for alternative distribution. If you have not submitted since then, you will meet them on your next update. The form takes two minutes. Deciding the honest answer, and whether to build the under-13 option, is worth doing before release week.
Apple’s other new rules this year are in our guide to App Review Guidelines changes.
Sources: Apple’s Introducing Time Allowances (8 June 2026), Age rating questionnaire now includes social media questions (9 July 2026) and Set an app age rating.
Related: App Review Guidelines changes · How to publish an app on the App Store · Couples and relationship app development