Declared background modes with no matching functionality
Background modes are declared in UIBackgroundModes and each one has to match something the app actually does. Declaring background location or background audio without the functionality behind it is a rejection reason, and reviewers ask you to demonstrate the feature.
Why it matters
Background modes are a privilege: they let an app keep running when the user is not looking at it. Apple grades them accordingly, and the review question is always whether the app genuinely needs the mode rather than whether it declared it.
The two that are checked most closely are location and audio, because they are the ones most often added speculatively, or inherited from a template, or kept after the feature that needed them was removed.
A declaration nothing uses is also a smaller version of the same problem as an unused permission: the app is asking for something it does not need, which is the shape of the thing Apple is looking for.
How to fix it
- Read UIBackgroundModes in Info.plist and account for each entry against a feature you can demonstrate.
- Remove any mode that no longer has code behind it, which is the common case rather than the rare one.
- If a mode is genuinely used, be ready to show the reviewer where, and describe it in the review notes if it is not obvious from the interface.
The guidelines behind it
Read from Apple’s App Review Guidelines as last updated October 16, 2026.
What ReviewAhead checks
Background modes. Declared background modes must correspond to real, demonstrable functionality.
- Background location declared without location API use found in your source.
- Background audio declared without audio API use found.
- Lists the declared modes, and says when it could not compare them because there was no source to read.
Apple’s own documentation for this requirement: developer.apple.com. Where this page and Apple disagree, Apple is right and this page is a bug.