Apple is adding two new App Store disclosure categories that could matter to a broad range of social, companion and connected-game apps: Shared Location and Dating and Relationships. Beginning November 16, developers will be required to say whether their software includes either type of feature so the app can receive an appropriate age rating.

The change is administrative on its face, but the definitions matter. A dating or relationship disclosure is not limited to the familiar swipe-based dating app. It also covers apps that enable dating or relationship connections with a virtual companion when that companion engages in sexual or romantic material. That makes the policy notable for developers working in the increasingly broad space between social apps, interactive entertainment and AI-style companion experiences.

What Apple is asking developers to disclose

The two categories address different kinds of app functionality:

  • Shared Location: an app includes real-world location sharing.
  • Dating and Relationships: an app allows dating or relationship connections, whether the connection is with a real person or with a virtual companion involving sexual or romantic content.

These are disclosures for age-rating purposes. In practical terms, a developer must identify the relevant functionality during the App Store submission process rather than leaving the platform to infer it from an app’s category, screenshots or general description.

That distinction is important. An app can be presented as a game, a social experience, a lifestyle product or a utility and still contain an interaction that falls into one of the new categories. The disclosure turns on the presence of the covered feature, not on the label the developer puts on the app.

Dating and relationship apps will carry an 18+ minimum

Apps identified as including Dating and Relationships functionality will receive a minimum age rating of 18+. Apple’s definition explicitly encompasses virtual companions with sexual or romantic content, so developers cannot assume that an experience avoids the category simply because users are not matched with other human users.

For interactive-app creators, the useful dividing line is the one Apple has stated: the relationship or dating connection and the sexual or romantic nature of the companion content are relevant. The supplied policy details do not establish a wider rule for every fictional character, story game or general chat feature. Developers should therefore avoid treating the new disclosure as a blanket classification for all games that contain relationships, while also avoiding the opposite mistake of assuming a virtual companion automatically falls outside the policy.

An age rating is the age designation assigned to an app for distribution on the storefront. It is separate from a device’s technical ability to run an app and separate from an app’s genre. Under this change, the relationship disclosure has a clear rating consequence: 18+ is the minimum.

Location sharing does not have one universal outcome

The Shared Location disclosure is more region-dependent. Apple says that declaring real-world location sharing may not change an app’s minimum age rating in some regions. In Brazil, however, the category is specifically tied to an A16 rating.

Brazil also assigns A18 to Dating and Relationships. Those ratings distinguish the two functions: location sharing is treated at the A16 level, while dating and relationship functionality is placed at A18.

There is a stated route for exceptions in Brazil. An app that may warrant a lower rating, including an example of a parent-and-child location-sharing app, can seek a rating from Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security. That does not mean all family-oriented location tools receive a lower rating automatically. It means developers with a qualifying use case can request an assessment.

Why the definitions matter for game-adjacent apps

The policy is especially relevant to products that mix play, social contact and ongoing character interaction. A conventional game may have location-aware elements, community tools or fictional romance without necessarily matching the precise descriptions supplied here. But an app with real-world location sharing, or one built around a romantic or sexual companion relationship, has a much more direct reason to examine the new questions closely.

“Real-world location sharing” is the key phrase for the first category. It points to a user sharing their physical location, rather than simply an app using a fictional map, a player selecting an in-game region or a game displaying an invented destination. Likewise, the Dating and Relationships category is specifically concerned with dating or relationship connections, including covered virtual-companion content.

For players and parents, the change should make storefront age information more legible where these functions are present. The disclosure itself does not describe every safety control an app may offer, nor does it tell users how an individual app handles location data. It does, however, ask developers to identify two categories of functionality that can carry obvious context and age-suitability concerns.

That makes it sensible to treat an App Store age rating as one useful signal, not a complete explanation of an app’s behavior. Anyone weighing whether to use location-enabled services on an iPhone may also want to understand broader device-safety basics, including the practical guidance in this look at airport USB charging and iPhone safety.

Deadlines developers need to track

The new requirement starts on November 16. Developers must submit the Shared Location and Dating and Relationships disclosures through App Store Connect by January 12, 2027.

App Store Connect is Apple’s submission system for developers. In this case, it is the channel through which the feature declarations must be made. The deadline is therefore not simply a suggestion to update marketing copy or revise an in-app notice; it concerns the information provided in the platform’s app-management workflow.

A focused compliance checklist

  1. Review whether the app permits users to share their real-world location.
  2. Review whether it enables dating or relationship connections with people.
  3. Review virtual-companion interactions for sexual or romantic content that places them within the Dating and Relationships definition.
  4. Submit the appropriate declarations in App Store Connect by January 12, 2027.
  5. For apps distributed in Brazil, note the A16 shared-location and A18 dating-and-relationships ratings, and consider the stated ministry review route if a lower rating may apply to a qualifying location-sharing use case.

The central takeaway is straightforward: developers should evaluate actual features rather than rely on the app’s broad genre or intended audience. Location-sharing tools and romantic or sexual virtual-companion systems may now affect the information required for App Store age ratings, with a firm 18+ floor for the Dating and Relationships category and specific Brazilian ratings for both new disclosure types.