How to Spot a Low-Quality AI Coloring App Before You Download It

Apple’s App Store added roughly 560,000 new apps in just the first half of 2026, and by most accounts, the large majority are low-quality, AI-generated submissions — what’s now commonly called “AI slop.” Coloring apps are a specific target for this, because a coloring app is deceptively simple to fake: no gameplay logic, no complex UI, just a set of line-art images and a fill tool. That makes it one of the easiest app categories to mass-produce without ever actually testing what gets shipped.

Real users are already reporting the results. Common complaints on AI-generated coloring apps include distorted art — animals with two heads, mangled hands or paws — pages that arrive already colored in (defeating the entire purpose of a coloring app), garbled text baked into the artwork, and coloring pages far too complex and cluttered for the young kids these apps are marketed to. Several reviewers describe a paid subscription on top of it as “a waste of money.”

This is a different problem from the one we’ve written about before regarding AI coloring generators vs. traditional coloring apps, which is about the safety tradeoffs of live, prompt-based generation. This is simpler and blunter: a growing share of coloring apps on the store right now are just badly made, and it’s worth knowing how to tell before you download one or hand over a subscription.

Red Flags to Check Before You Download

1. Zoom into the screenshots

This is the single fastest check. Look closely at the actual line art in the App Store preview images, not just the overall impression:

• Extra or missing fingers, limbs, or facial features on characters and animals
• Garbled, warped, or nonsensical text baked into the artwork itself
• A “coloring page” screenshot that’s already filled in with color — a real tell that the screenshot wasn’t generated by an actual coloring workflow
• Wildly inconsistent art style between screenshots, suggesting each one came from a different, unreviewed generation

2. Read the reviews for specific complaints, not just the star rating

A high star average alone doesn’t tell you much. Scan the actual text of recent reviews for concrete, specific complaints — “animal has two heads,” “images already colored,” “text is gibberish” — rather than trusting an aggregate score. Vague five-star reviews with no detail are less informative than one specific one-star complaint describing exactly what broke.

3. Check when the reviews were posted

A wall of five-star reviews that all landed in the first few days after launch, with little or nothing since, is a known pattern for inflated review activity rather than organic use building up over time. A healthier signal is reviews spread out over months, including a mix of ratings.

4. Look at the developer’s other apps

Tap through to the developer’s page in the App Store. A developer with a dozen near-identical “coloring book” apps published in a short window, each with generic template-sounding names and descriptions, is a stronger signal of a mass-production pipeline than a single, specifically-branded app with a consistent visual identity.

5. Be skeptical of a free trial that converts to a subscription fast

This isn’t unique to AI-generated apps, but it compounds the risk: if the app itself turns out to be low quality, a short free trial that auto-converts to a paid subscription means you’re now also managing a cancellation instead of just deleting a free app. Our guide on cancelling a coloring app subscription covers exactly that if it happens.

What a Genuinely Well-Made Coloring App Looks Like By Comparison

The contrast isn’t subtle once you know what to look for: consistent art style across every screenshot, line art that’s actually free of color for the coloring mechanic to make sense, sensible region complexity matched to the stated age range, and reviews that read like they’re describing real, varied sessions rather than generic praise. It’s also worth checking whether a source independent of the developer has actually opened and tested the app rather than just describing its store listing — which is the same standard we hold ourselves to for every app in our own reviews.

Our Take

None of this requires special tools — just slowing down for the thirty seconds it takes to actually look at the screenshots and read a few specific reviews before downloading, instead of trusting a star rating at a glance. As AI-generated submissions keep growing as a share of the App Store, that quick check is likely to matter more over time, not less.

Sources: The Apple App Store Is Flooded With AI Slop (Forbes), Apple’s App Store Is On Pace to Add 1 Million New Apps This Year, Most Are AI Slop (TechSpot), App Safety Red Flags: Warning Signs Users Shouldn’t Ignore (Forbes)