The Play Console registration fee is a one-time US$25. Apple Developer Program membership is 99 USD a year, in local currency where Apple offers it. If that membership expires, Apple is blunt: your apps are no longer available for download. People who already installed keep listening. People who search the station name in the store do not.
I think a radio app vanishes from the storefront more often because the account lapsed or the target SDK is stale than because reviewers hated the logo. The binary is the start. The job is the account, the forms, and the Account Holder's inbox.
Personal Play accounts: 12 testers, 14 days
Google Play has personal and organization accounts. A personal account can require a valid ID and a credit card in your legal name. If those details fail verification, the US$25 fee is not refunded.
For personal accounts created after 13 November 2023, production stays locked until you test. Help Center requires a closed test with at least 12 testers opted in for at least 14 consecutive days. Then you apply for production access and answer questions about the test, the app, and readiness. Review usually takes up to seven days. It can take longer.
Fourteen days means fourteen days in a row. A tester who joins, taps play twice, and leaves does not count. Someone who leaves and rejoins restarts the streak. Twelve real people from the newsroom, sales, and family, left enrolled for two weeks, meet the number. Twelve fake inboxes do not.
The store also wants a content rating. Apps listed as unrated are removed from Google Play. A live stream with an empty questionnaire still gets pulled.
Privacy policy and Data safety
Every app published on Google Play, including closed, open, or production tracks, fills in the Data safety form. That includes apps that collect no user data. In that case the form and the policy say so, with a live URL.
If the app requests sensitive permissions or data, the privacy policy must sit on the store listing and inside the app, at an address that actually opens. It has to describe collection, use, and who the data is shared with. Ad SDKs, analytics, and an embedded player count: Google treats third-party code as your problem.
Apple's guideline 5.1.1 is in the same key: a privacy policy link in App Store Connect metadata and inside the app, easy to find. Skip it and review starts on the back foot.
31 August 2026: Android 16 on Play
From 31 August 2026, new apps and updates must target Android 16 (API level 36). An already published app that does not reach Android 15 (API level 35) stops showing up for new users on devices newer than the app's target. Existing installs keep working. A listener who buys a new phone and searches again sees that the app was built for an older Android.
You can request an extension until 1 November 2026, through the Play Console form, once Google surfaces the warning. An extension is not a reason to leave the encoder running and the bundle untouched.
Wear OS, Android TV, Android Automotive, and Android XR have different floors on the same page. A radio app on a watch or in a car does not copy the phone number. Read the row for that platform.
Apple: $99, D-U-N-S, and guideline 4.2
A free Apple developer account can drop a build on your own iPhone with Xcode. Shipping on the App Store needs membership. An individual enrolls with a legal name as the seller. An organization needs a legal entity, a D-U-N-S Number, someone with authority to sign, a work email on the company domain, and a public website that works. Apple rejects DBAs, trade names, and branches. Dun & Bradstreet can take up to five business days to issue the number; Apple asks up to two more business days to receive it.
Guideline 4.2 wants features, content, and UI beyond a wrapped website. 4.2.2 says that, other than catalogs, an app should not primarily be marketing, web clippings, a content aggregator, or a pile of links. A native player, background audio used for playback (2.5.4), a schedule, and support contact (1.5) are the radio minimum. A WebView of the station site, by itself, is the shortest path to a rejection.
During review, 2.1 wants a finished build, working URLs, and a live backend. If the stream is down the day the reviewer hits play, that is a business outage, not a compiler error.
The Account Holder cannot disappear
At Apple, the Account Holder renews. Manual renewal opens 30 days before expiry. If membership already lapsed, free apps return within 24 hours after you pay; paid apps return only after you accept the Paid Applications Agreement again in App Store Connect. You do not resubmit the binary. You do need someone who still has the password.
Skipping iOS to "just ship Android" saves the annual fee and hands every iPhone listener to whatever else ranks for the station name. The other mistake is shipping on Play and ignoring target SDK until 31 August 2026. In both stores, a radio app is a living account, not a file on the engineer's USB stick.
Stations that want their own app on both stores without a full Console team can look at AppRadio's station app. The station still owns the Apple inbox, the Data safety answers, and the reply when a store asks a question. This is not legal advice. It is the text the stores published. Check Play Console, the Apple developer account, and your counsel before you sign anything.
This week, two screens. In Play Console: Policy status and the target SDK of the live bundle. At Apple: Membership details and the expiry date. If the Account Holder left the building, treat that like a transmitter off the air, not an IT footnote.