How to make a dating app for iPhone and Android: features, store rules and the build

In most apps, one user gets value on their own. In a dating app, a user gets value only when the right other users are there. If the app is only on iPhone, every Android user your iPhone users would have matched with is missing, and the same the other way round.

So the usual advice to launch on one platform first does not fit dating and social apps. Both platforms are part of the minimum product. The practical question is how to build two apps without doubling the work: a cross-platform framework such as React Native or Flutter, two native apps, or one project that produces both native apps. Native vs cross-platform app explains the difference in what ships.

Apple names dating apps in guideline 4.3(b): “Certain kinds of apps, such as dating, flashlight, sound effects, wallpaper, simple timers, and fortune telling, are well established on the App Store and we will not accept new submissions unless they offer a meaningfully different or improved experience.”

“A Tinder clone” does not meet that bar. A dating app for a defined audience, or with a different way of meeting, has a better chance. Write the difference in one sentence before you design anything, for example: “A dating app for people who run, matched by the races they have entered.” Put that sentence in the App Store description and in the notes to the reviewer.

Apple also lists what it does not accept. Guideline 1.2 excludes apps used for “random or anonymous chat, objectification of real people (e.g. "hot-or-not" voting)”, and 1.1.4 excludes “"hookup" apps and other apps that may include pornography”. Google Play’s inappropriate content policy lists compensated dating (“sugar dating”) among its violations.

Sign-up and profile. Name, age, photos, a short bio, and the few fields your niche matches on. If you offer sign-in with Google or another social login, Apple’s guideline 4.8 requires an equivalent alternative login option as well.

Discovery. A list or a stack of profiles filtered by distance, age and your niche fields. Ask for location only when the user reaches discovery, and accept approximate location: since iOS 14, Apple lets users “grant an app only their approximate rather than their exact location.”

Matching. A like in both directions creates a match. Only matched users can message each other.

Chat. Text messages between matched users, with read state and push notifications.

Block and report. On every profile and in every chat. Both stores require this, below.

Settings and account deletion. Apple guideline 5.1.1(v): “If your app supports account creation, you must also offer account deletion within the app.” Google Play asks for “an in-app path to delete their app accounts and associated data” and “a web link resource where users can request app account deletion”.

Leave for later: video calls, verified badges, events, and anything that needs a second team to moderate.

Apple, guideline 1.2. “To prevent abuse, apps with user-generated content or social networking services must include:” a method for filtering objectionable material, “A mechanism to report offensive content and timely responses to concerns”, the ability to block abusive users, and “Published contact information so users can easily reach you”.

Google Play, user-generated content policy. Users accept your terms before they post; the app “Conducts UGC moderation”; and it provides “an in-app system for reporting and blocking objectionable UGC and users”.

Google Play, Child Safety Standards. “Anonymous and Random chat apps, and apps in the Social and Dating categories are currently in scope for this policy.” A dating app must have published standards against child sexual abuse and exploitation, an in-app way for users to give feedback, a process to address child sexual abuse material, compliance with child safety laws, and “a child safety point of contact”.

Age rating. Apple’s age ratings now include “13+, 16+, and 18+” next to 4+ and 9+. You answer Apple’s age rating questions in App Store Connect, and the answers set the rating. Set a minimum age in your own terms and at sign-up as well.

In practice this means: a report button that reaches a person, a block that takes effect at once, a moderation queue you check every day, a published safety page, and a contact email on the store listing.

Sign-in with email and at least one social login, plus Sign in with Apple or another login that meets guideline 4.8.

A database for profiles, likes, matches and reports, with rules so that each user can read only what they are allowed to see.

File storage for photos, with size limits and a check before photos are shown to others.

Real-time messaging for chat, so new messages appear without a refresh.

Push notifications for new matches and messages, through Apple’s and Google’s push services.

Location queries to find profiles within a distance.

Firebase and Supabase both cover sign-in, a database, storage and real-time updates. Keep API keys and moderation logic on the server, never inside the app. Mobile app security for first-time founders covers the basics.

Most dating apps use a subscription that unlocks features such as seeing who liked you or more likes per day. On iPhone that has to go through Apple’s in-app purchase, guideline 3.1.1: “If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, …), you must use in-app purchase.” Google Play’s payments policy says apps “requiring or accepting payment for access to in-app features or services” “must use Google Play's billing system for those transactions”, with listed exceptions. Paywall tools for iOS and Android compares the tools that manage subscriptions on both stores.

Launch free. Add the paywall when there are enough active users in one place that people come back every day.

With a development team you write the spec above and hire for both platforms. How to hire an iPhone app developer compares freelancers, agencies and in-house.

With a cross-platform framework such as React Native or Flutter, one codebase produces both apps.

With Modaal, you describe the app, Modaal turns it into a requirements document and a spec per feature, and your own AI agent builds a native SwiftUI app for iPhone and a native Jetpack Compose app for Android from the same project. The matching, chat and safety logic is written once and shared; each platform gets its own native screens. Firebase is supported for the backend. Pro (€9 per user per month billed annually) builds both platforms and adds TestFlight and automated App Store publishing; there are no credits, because the AI runs on your own subscription.