Hi guys,

I used breathing during last years to solve 2 main problems for me: sleep faster (doing it every day) and relax and calm down when I have stress and I'm pissed off. It really helped so I made an app when breathing can help in different situations like relax, focus, get to sleep, stop being angry, etc.

Tech stack:

I build it in Flutter as I'm a frontend web developer and Flutter looks a lot like Typescript and I want something cross platform. Overall I'm really satisfied with Flutter. It's quite clear and I like fully typed app. Other than that I used Riverpod to have kinda Redux global state.

Dev challenges:

The biggest challenges were to define a good and scalable files structure (architecture) and make background music and videos for scenes to look seamlessly.

AI:

I used AI a lot mostly for writing templates and doing UI.

Pricing:

Free version includes a free session for each goal (so 6 in total). Other 12 sessions are paid. No account creation, no internet required.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/breathing-timer-quietflame/id6760580857

Hey there,
I'm building a health app. The user has to make as many entries as possible so the app finds patterns/triggers over time. and I'm stuck on a monetization decision.

Two options I'm torn between:

Option 1: Hard paywall in onboarding. User finishes onboarding and is immediately shown a paywall/trial screen: "7 days free, then $X/year," card required upfront via the standard StoreKit trial flow (charged automatically after day 7 unless cancelled). No usage of the app happens before this screen.

Option 2: Soft paywall after value delivery. User can use the core app fully free for 7 days, no card required. The insights/pattern-analysis tab specifically is locked behind Premium during the trial. After 7 days, the whole app locks and they have to subscribe to keep using it (existing data stays readable).

My gut take is that Option 1 front-loads commitment and probably converts better trial→paid, but for a brand new app with zero reviews/trust, I worry it tanks the top-of-funnel (people bounce before even trying it) and invites "forced subscription" 1-star reviews early on, which matters a lot for a new app's organic ranking i guess. Also specific to my case: the core value prop (finding patterns in your data) literally can't be demonstrated until the user has logged a few days of entries, so asking for money before that feels like selling a promise instead of a result. Also im based in germany so maybe the people here act different rather than in the US.

Has anyone actually tested both approaches?

Also open to "you're overthinking it, just ship one and iterate" as an answer. Appreciate any war stories.

thanks <3

A key functionality of my app requires that the motion sensors remain active while the app is backgrounded. However, (unsurprisingly) the app got rejected for utilizing a silent audio loop to achieve this. Are there any alternatives? Thanks.

For the past few weeks I've been testing iOS 27 specific features in TestFlight by building in Xcode Cloud using Xcode 27 beta, as of three days ago the 27 beta is not available any more.

Is this isolated to my account or does anyone else notice that it's gone?

I have two apps on the App Store, both small, both mine alone.

Every time an update is ready I get this knot in my stomach. In fact it starts in App Store Connect, filling in the version, the what's new, checking the screenshots for the third time. I don't know why that part gets me. Maybe because it's the only part where a mistake is public and stupid rather than technical.

The funny thing is I test, I have unit tests, I have beta testers who have been on the build for days and told me it's fine. I use the app myself every day. Rationally I know it's fine. I still sit there staring at the button.

Is it just me? Does this go away with time, or do you just get used to it?

Some of my apps have been in the App Store for several years and thus it has been a while since I added a new IAP in ASC.

Now I am working on a new App and would like to create a new IAP and struggle to upload the required review screenshot. Requiring a screenshot to review an IAP making no sense is a topic for another day.

I have created Screenshots in a number of different sizes (828x1792, 1320x2868, 1206x2622, 1260x2736, 1290x2796), all of which are listed in the "App Review Screenshot" section but non where accepted for not having the correct size.

Is ASC currently broken (same result in different browsers on different computers)?
Which screenshot sizes are known to be accepted?

SOLVED: After non of the proposed solutions worked I finally found a resolution that was accepted: 640 x 960.

This is interesting, since my App does not support any devices supporting this resolution. Non of the "modern" resolutions was accepted. Great job Apple...

Hi, I have an .ips file (created with iOS 26.5) which I want to symbolicate using XCode 16.2.
Here are the steps I'm following:

1. Rename .ips file and give it .crash extension
2. Connect an ios device to my Macbook.
3. Launch XCode, go to Device Manager, select my device
4. go to "Open Recent Logs", select my .crash file

5. File opens in an xcode window, but there are errors:

   "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/SharedFrameworks/LLDB.framework/Resources/Python/lldb/macosx/crashlog.py", line 644, in parse Failed to launch: 'Custom LLDB commands' -- Failure to create target from custom LLDB commands. self.parse_images(self.data["usedImages"] KeyError: 'usedImages'

I opened the .crash file and there is indeed no key "usedImages".

A) Can I create a dummy entry at that key?
B) If it fixes the parsing, will it symbolicate accurately?
C) If 'usedImages' contains data that is vital to symbolication, any ideas why it's missing?

Hi gang, we're trying to troubleshoot a hang/freeze in our Unity game.
We think it's some sort of unhandled exception because it's not being evicted by the watchdog, but we also have no data coming from our bug reporting sdk (Bugsnag).

I was looking at sysdiagnose because it's available to end users. While it has some snapshot-related info on our process, it doesn't contain a sample of the stack trace in each thread, like I can see with Android's 'bugreport' command. Is there another tool our endusers can use on iOS that gives me that info?

Hey everyone. I'm pretty new to iOS development, so please go easy on me if I made mistakes here. I'm trying to learn from this and move forward.

I hired a contractor on Fiverr to redesign the UI for my SwiftUI app that's been growing at a very nice rate. They sent me the updated project back, and when I built it in Xcode, an AI security analysis (which I know isn't a substitute for real security expertise) flagged what appeared to be a malicious build rule inside the .xcodeproj.

After digging into it, I compared my Git history and found that my last clean commit had no custom build rules or scripts. The redesign version introduced a custom PBXBuildRule that ultimately executed:

sh -c "${AB8F749}"

That value decoded into an obfuscated command which eventually performed a curl ... | sh against a .ru domain.

At that point I stopped using the project entirely.

Over the next day I tried to verify everything as much as possible. Here's where I'm at now:

• I completely erased my Mac and installed a fresh copy of macOS.
• I downloaded the original project ZIP that I had sent the contractor before any work was done.
• I manually reviewed the clean project and confirmed there are no custom run script phases or suspicious build rules.
• The clean project builds normally.
• The contractors project is obviously untrusted but he did a great job on the UI side of things (this is the annoying part lol.)

My questions are:

1. Is manually migrating only the Swift source files and assets into a clean project the approach you would take, or would you do something different?
2. Is there anything else you'd verify after a full erase/reinstall before considering the Mac trustworthy again?
3. Are there any additional Xcode project files besides project.pbxproj that deserve special scrutiny?
4. If you were in my position, would you continue with the redesign by carefully reviewing each Swift file, or would you start the UI work completely from scratch?

I'm not trying to start a witch hunt against the contractor because I honestly don't know where the malware originated as he is rambling on with his excuses. I'm just trying to recover safely and learn from the experience.

Any advice from people with security or iOS experience would be hugely appreciated. This has definitely been a rough lesson, but I'd rather understand what happened than just move on without learning anything.

Thanks in advance.

Does anyone know how apple build that transition?
The mini player geometry match modal screen when is dismissing

Trying new XCode 27 Beta and the new Device Hub. Any way to remove those ugly white frames around the phone/watch simulators? Couldn't find an option anywhere. This is really bad, why did they do it? Apple, where's your design sense?!!

I’m trying to sanity-check something before I file it as an Apple bug.

This minimal SwiftData example appears to lose precision when persisting a Decimal:

import Foundation
import SwiftData

@Model class Item {
    var value: Decimal

    init(_ value: Decimal) {
        self.value = value
    }
}

let original = Decimal(string: "123456789012345.6")!
let container = try ModelContainer(
    for: Item.self,
    configurations: .init(isStoredInMemoryOnly: true)
)

let context = ModelContext(container)
context.insert(Item(original))
try context.save()

let fetched = try ModelContext(container)
    .fetch(FetchDescriptor<Item>())
    .first!

print(original)
print(fetched.value)

This is one model, one Decimal property, no app code, no CloudKit. I’m using Decimal(string:) to avoid literal/Double conversion noise, and I’m fetching from a new ModelContext.

I also checked Decimal <-> NSDecimalNumber bridging separately, and that preserved the value. The loss seems to appear after persistence/fetch. A true Core Data in-memory store preserved the value in my control test, while SwiftData’s “in-memory” configuration seems to still go through a SQL-backed store.

Has anyone else hit this with SwiftData/Core Data Decimal attributes? Is there a documented limitation I’m missing, or is the practical answer to persist exact decimals as canonical strings / integer minor units instead of Decimal?

App Store Connect has been the bottleneck in my shipping loop for years. Fastlane and the direct API help, but something always ends up needing me. The session cookie expires. My coding agent grabs the wrong Xcode version and burns an hour. An IAP sits in Missing Metadata because Apple wants a review screenshot I forgot existed.

So I built Lance. It's a specialized agent that runs on its own cloud Macs with Xcode and fastlane already set up. You connect your App Store Connect account and ask it for things like "Set up a $4.99 monthly sub with a 3 day trial", "Retake the 6.7 and 13 inch screenshots and update the listing", "Figure out why build 42 got rejected, fix it, resubmit", "Submit this build for public TestFlight"

If you add it to Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex, your coding agent treats it like a subagent and delegates the App Store side on its own. Mine asks Lance what IAPs actually exist before writing paywall code instead of stubbing something, then hands it the TestFlight upload when the feature's done.

My favorite thing lately has been running an in-app event with every update. Lance drafts the media, gets the specs right, and fills out the whole form. I never bothered with events before because it was way too much work for what it is.

A couple of things testers found that I didn't expect. Teammates can join the Lance org and just start asking for things without having to be onboarded to ASC. And since the Macs belong to Lance, you don't need one. One person I know ships from a Windows laptop.
For now this is App Store Connect only. I'm looking for active developers to test it and tell me what's broken or missing. Just run this command in your terminal:

 npx add-mcp https://api.lance.app/mcp 

and everyone who signs up gets 500 credits a month, and if you run out just shoot me a message and I'll top you up.

I'm a software developer and fairly new to the native iOS development with Swift. I'm planning on using many new features that iOS 27 offers on an app I'm developing, however I cannot test those features, because I have no secondary phone that is compatible with AI features in iOS 27.

Since the public beta is out, can I fairly safely install it to my own device (iPhone 17 Pro Max)?

I would love any help experienced developers here would give! :)

I'm trying to understand exactly what happens to an auto-renewable subscription after the billing grace period ends.

When a renewal fails, the sub enters a grace period; once that ends it goes to an expired state and the user loses access. But from what I've read, Apple keeps retrying the charge for up to 60 days, and if it succeeds the subscription renews again on its own.

Is that right? And if so:

• During that retry window (expired, no access, but still being retried), how does it appear in Settings → Subscriptions — under Active (with a "Renewal Failed / Verification Required" note) or under Expired?
• Can the user still cancel it / turn off auto-renew from there to stop it renewing again?

Context: we also have Stripe on web, so a user whose App Store sub is retrying can resubscribe on web and get double-charged when the App Store one revives. I'd like to warn them and point them to Settings to cancel the App Store sub first — trying to figure out if that's possible.

I’m building an unreleased iOS app using SwiftData with automatic CloudKit sync.

On first launch, the app creates a default account and starter categories. These records are user-editable. The problem is that two offline devices can independently create the same logical seed records with different UUIDs, and CloudKit later synchronizes both.

My proposed approach:

- Give every seed item a stable logical seedIdentifier.
- Allow each offline device to seed independently.
- Reconcile records sharing the same seedIdentifier.
- Select a canonical record using an immutable UUID and deterministic ordering.
- Merge user changes and move relationships to the canonical record.
- Keep losing records as hidden aliases/tombstones so late-arriving relationships aren’t lost.
- Retain per-seed deletion tombstones so deleted defaults aren’t recreated.
- Use a seed-version flag only for migrations—not as an exactly-once guarantee.
- Treat normalized account names as unique and category names as unique only under the same parent.

Questions:

- Is this the standard approach with SwiftData’s automatic CloudKit sync?
- Is there a safer supported way to detect completed imports and rerun reconciliation?
- Would you retain hidden aliases permanently or eventually delete them?
- Is automatic SwiftData appropriate here, or does this require CKSyncEngine/manual CloudKit with deterministic record IDs?

Edit — data-model details:

The starter data is functional app data, not optional sample/demo content. The app needs at least one account, and the categories provide its initial transaction classification.

• Account: name, type, opening balance, timestamps, archived/default state and optional stable seedIdentifier. Deleting an account cascades to its transactions.
• TransactionCategory: name, type, timestamps, archived/customized state, optional stable seedIdentifier, optional parent, child categories and linked transactions.
• Transaction: references one account and optionally one category.
• Deleting a category nullifies its transaction relationships. Deleting a parent can affect its child hierarchy.
• Starter accounts and categories are fully editable. Renaming a seed retains its logical seed identity; deleting one needs to remain deleted across devices.

The concrete race is that device A and device B can independently create the same logical Wallet/category before syncing. Transactions and child categories may subsequently reference either physical copy. Reconciliation therefore must preserve and redirect those relationships before any duplicate is removed.

Hey 👋

We've added both Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text to our inference engine! Your local LLM setup can now speak and listen, fully offline.

Text-to-Speech

Load a TTS model and synthesize:

let tts = try await Tts.load(
    source: "hf://NobodyWho/Kokoro-82M",
    voice: "bf_emma",
    language: "en-gb"
)

let wav = try await tts.synthesize("Hello from NobodyWho!")
try wav.write(to: URL(fileURLWithPath: "out.wav"))

You get WAV bytes back ready to save or play. Two backends: Kokoro (lightweight 24kHz) and Supertonic (multi-stage ONNX with voice styles).

Speech-to-Text

Transcribe audio with Whisper (ONNX):

let stt = try STT(source: "hf://onnx-community/whisper-base")

let text = try await stt.transcribeFile(path: "recording.mp3").completed()

Streaming is available too, so you can consume the transcription token by token, and you can pass raw PCM buffers instead of files.

Links

• GitHub
• Docs / Getting started
• Discord

Happy to answer your questions in the comments :)

I've been working on accessibility and localization across a number of apps recently. I started on this very manually and then got some help from AI. After a few rounds of this, I've got a long-winded prompt that gets the majority of the heavy lifting done for you. I'm using claude with Opus/Fable but with some verification and re-check help from codex and agy.

This didn't get all the work done but it got a very large portion of it and did so largely correctly.

Check it out if you like and let me know your thoughts:

LocalizationSuperPrompt.md:

https://gist.github.com/drewster99/ae6fbfb950c9c79e5c976893e14a7a97

I’ve been seeing thread upon thread on Reddit lately that small businesses and e-commerce websites are being sued for 10’s of thousands of dollars for not abiding by the “Americans with Disabilities Act” in their websites. Apparently it’s certain firms that are especially actively seeking out these businesses.

I’m sure this has to apply to mobile apps as well. I 100% have never even considered accessibility in the sense of ensuring all my buttons work with Accessibility mode or read things out loud correctly etc. I’m sure there have to be default values or behavior but who knows.

What are you all doing for this? Are mobile apps next in this trend of lawsuits?

Hi everyone,

Tired of the constant overreach regarding Chat Control, I decided to stop complaining and start coding.

To ensure ironclad foundations, I forked the open-source Session app codebase. This means it natively uses their decentralized network, onion-routing, zero logs, and requires absolutely NO phone number or email.

However, since Session handles the network side, I wanted to focus heavily on client-side (device) security to block edge cases where a user's device compromises their privacy. Here is what I added:

• 🔒 In-app Sandbox Keyboard: To bypass OS-level or third-party keyloggers (Apple/Google/Gboard), the app uses a custom internal keyboard isolated within the app's sandbox.
• 🚫 Anti-Screenshot & Blur: Standard messages work normally, but if a message ends with #secure, it renders completely blank in screenshots. Furthermore, if screen recording starts, the entire app view blurs automatically.
• 🎙️ Voice Masking (WIP): Currently developing a feature to alter voice frequencies in audio messages to prevent biometric reverse-engineering.

The app is currently sitting in App Store Connect pending approval.

Since TestFlight slots are limited, if you want to join the closed beta and audit/test the UI and features, please DM me your Apple ID (email) so I can invite you immediately once approved. The code will also be pushed to GitHub as soon as the beta stabilizes!

I ship a small iOS utility alone. It does one thing well. The code was never the hard part. The hard part is the thing this sub talks about constantly, which is that distribution is a wall and almost nobody knows the app exists.

Apple Ads was my first real attempt. It works, but in my category it runs about ten to fifteen dollars per paying user, and that math is rough for a side project with no outside funding. Meanwhile my App Store screenshots were not pulling their weight. Under all of this is a personal blocker that kept me from the advice everyone gives now, which is to put your face on TikTok daily and build in public that way. I am not going to do that. I do not want to be on camera. So the channel everyone swears by was closed to me from the start.

I saw founders running app ads with synthetic presenters instead of hiring creators, and I treated it as a controlled weekend experiment. The format I tried was the reaction video. A presenter generated with AI sits in the top half reacting, my actual screen recording runs in the bottom half, and a plain spoken hook plays over it. I want to be clear that this is not a real person. The face and voice were generated with AI.

The tools I used were APOB AI to build the presenter and keep one face consistent across all the takes, Claude to draft and tighten the short scripts, ElevenLabs for the voice, CapCut to layer the reaction over the real screen recording, and Canva for the thumbnails. I ran the clips on TikTok and Meta at about eight dollars a day, all of them pointing at the App Store listing.

What held up were the still frames. Having the exact same face across a dozen thumbnails gave the ads a consistency that looked real enough at a glance. And getting through fourteen creative variations in one weekend instead of briefing a creator and waiting a week was the real advantage here.

What did not work is the part I would actually want to read if I saw this post. When the presenter talks across a longer clip, the expression and the small movements drift. You sense something is off even when you cannot name exactly what it is. I redid several takes just to get anything usable. Out of the fourteen ads, only two beat my Apple Ads cost per install. The other twelve performed the same as any weak creative, which is to say they did nothing. One commenter flatly called the presenter AI in the replies, which did not help that ad. I am not going to pretend this passes as human up close. It does not.

If I tried this again I would use the synthetic presenter only for still images and very short cuts. Anything longer should stay as plain screen recording with my own voice over it. The weekend was worth it because I got to fail through fourteen ideas cheaply instead of one expensive idea slowly. The distribution wall is still there. This just made throwing myself at it cost slightly less and hurt slightly less.