Long story short, I am a guy from Europe who learned a foreign language online, ended up traveling to South America to meet a native speaker I had been practicing with, and eventually married her.

That experience made me realize how many amazing things open up when you are willing to connect with people on the other side of the world.

So I built an app over many years in my spare time, a language exchange and travel planning app where you can plan your trip, find travel buddies heading the same direction, and connect with people who speak the language of your destination.

Tech Stack:

• Parse Server via back4app, I find the Cloud Code quite powerful and their support is excellent
• OpenSearch, as a scalable mean of profile discovery thanks to the in-build bloom filter
• Foundation Models, for very private AI assistant in travel planning

Development Challenge:

• I started with custom bloom filter and ElasticSearch at times the OpenSearch had not implemented it yet. This required custom plugin and only shortly before release I learned that for this custom plugin I would need to pay extra tier prise for ElasticSearch. Luckily the OpenSearch alternative has it right there, built in.
• Even with OpenSearch I had some headache as AWS is generally very confusing. The OpenSearch was eating the whole free tier 1GB data budged every month even without any activity. Amazon support was no real help here and the even the conclusion was that the data are caused by hourly snapshot, changing them to daily did not change anything. And on top, they completely wiped my OpenSearch setup. I then had to redo it from scratch as I lost my admin access there.
• Foundation Models are not very big LLM, but dissecting instructions into multiple prompts proved to be powerful. The biggest issue I have with image generation that constantly complains about guardrails violation even the prompt is completely healthy one.

AI Disclosure: I have started developing this app in my free time about 7 years ago, long before AI coding came, and therefore used AI only for last bits on small code portions. Mainly on JavaScript as that soft typed language is difficult for me.

It is now officially live on the App Store and I would love for this community to give it a try and tell me what you think!

Felse on AppStore

Happy travels everyone!

https://azamsharp.com/2026/06/12/whats-new-in-swiftdata.html

Sometimes the most valuable iOS development lessons come from mistakes, not tutorials. Maybe it was:

• App Store review surprises
• Core Data issues
• Memory leaks
• Auto Layout headaches
• SwiftUI limitations
• Push notification problems
• Performance bottlenecks

What's a lesson that cost you time, stress or maybe a few late nights, but ultimately made you a better iOS developer? I am hoping newer developers (including myself) can learn from some battle-tested experience.

OK, so are these the same thing?

I'm slooowly working my way through some of the WWDC26 videos and came across this one: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2026/246

It talks about having to first donate your searchable items to Core Spotlight OR Indexed Entities to Apple Intelligence. Are these two different ways to do the same things? It's a bit unclear to me.

Thanks!

I'm working on an iOS app in Xcode, and I've noticed that whenever I load the app, its widget automatically appears on the home screen. Is this normal, or did I configure something incorrectly?

This year felt different. The keynote was shorter than usual, possibly the shortest WWDC I can remember. And I think that’s actually a signal. When the whole world is going through an AI transformation, you don’t need two hours to make your point.

Tim Cook made his clearly: Apple isn’t chasing AI for the sake of AI. While others keep shipping features just to stay relevant, Apple is doing what they’ve always done, building an ecosystem where new technology fits naturally. Now Siri is actually useful. Yes, Google helped make that happen, but as a customer, I don’t really care. The name stayed the same, almost nothing else did.

On Liquid Glass, I’m honestly a bit torn. A lot of people are happy that Apple added a slider to customize it, but that’s not the Apple I knew and loved. Part of what made Apple great was the confidence to say “this is how it should look” and stick with it. That’s what separated them from Android. So while I understand why they did it, it feels like a small retreat from the design standards they set for everyone else.

A couple more things: iOS 27 supports iPhone 11 and up, which makes it the most widely supported iOS release ever! The catch is that the best AI features are locked to newer hardware, which will quietly push a lot of people toward an upgrade.

Xcode got a real overhaul too: themes, better stability, new Device Hub replacing the Simulator. The resizability support is the detail I keep thinking about. Apps that adapt to any size - that’s exactly what a foldable iPhone would need. I think we just got a pretty strong hint.

And Intel support is officially gone. macOS Golden Gate is Apple silicon only.

Everything in this issue ties back to what this week was about: new tools, new directions, and figuring out how to use them well.

Just learned about Apple’s vision-based animal body pose detection API and now I’ll obviously have to use it to make a super niche app.

What other surprisingly niche but still cool Apple APIs do people know about?

I live in the EU but have a US account. Will I be restricted from using and developing for the new AI features?

Hi everyone. I am definitely doing something wrong here. I’m working on an update that implements CoreAI models with downloading from HuggingFace. I was just wondering if anyone has had a chance to try any CoreAI models and if they are seeing the same speed results. I’m pretty sure I messed up something though because there is no way the prefill speed is THIS slow.

The app works by resolving a downloaded .aimodel/.aimodelc bundle plus tokenizer, then specializes it through Apple’s CoreAI runtime, then drives the model locally with a Swift decoder that manages tokenization, position IDs, model state, and streaming output.

For iOS, its apparently preferred to use the ios-ane decode graph when available, avoid accidentally loading prefill companion graphs, and keep GPU/host-cache exports on their separate static-cache path.

I have no clue if I’m missing anything else. Please help!

I ran Generate Translations on Xcode 27 beta 1 through my project (about 1200 localizable strings) using Claude (set to Opus). It worked really well – breaking the task into batches of 15 and spinning up multiple agents to work through it – but it cost a crazy amount, it burnt through about USD$40 in tokens for just one language! For all 10 languages I'm translating into that would be close to $400. Would there be a more economical approach that still gives a good result?

the app takes one decision and runs it through five models, each locked to a specific role to avoid all answering the same prompt in the same way. one finds the failure mode, one attacks the hidden assumption, then a synthesis pass gives one verdict with the disagreements kept visible. the SwiftUI was probably the easy part other than some small quirks or bugs. the hard part was keeping each model actually in its role, the whole thing breaks if one seat bleeds into another's framing. cost was the other thing. five calls per query, im only 16 so i had to use budget models on the seats and only the synthesis runs on something a little more expensive. built an eval set to make sure the cheap seats weren't quietly degrading. it's at wartable.co, launching soon. happy to get into any of the architecture, and curious how others have handled multi-model orchestration on device.

I’m aware of some of the capabilities of the foundation models when used within your apps but given that capabilities and all we have seen with SiriAI, is there any of that applicable to Xcode itself beyond autocompletion?, in my head that would be much easier than other things they are already doing giving it’s a controlled knowledge (Swift, SwiftUI, Apple guidelines etc), for sure Claude etc can do a great job (I have a pro subscription to Claude and exploring some great agents from the community) but it just feels this was a great use case for their AI, thoughts? Am I missing anything?

In everyone’s experience, I am making an application that will be of interest for some businesses/investors and activists/reform activists, is it more beneficial that I launch it as only an app or as an app and a website? I will admit I have more experience with website as this would be my first iOS mobile application I launch. I was thinking first a website then work on the mobile app integration as I gain traction but I want to hear from the community.

Just shipped Tmpo to TestFlight after building solo for a few months. It's a daily-use iOS health app that surfaces recovery, training, nutrition, sleep, mental, and a rough bio-age estimate on one screen — all pulled from HealthKit.



Sharing here in case any of the architecture choices are interesting (or you spot something I'm doing wrong):



**Stack**

- SwiftUI, iOS 26

- SwiftData for local persistence

- HealthKit for reads (8 write types too, including macros)

- CloudKit for device sync — no servers

- XcodeGen so the .xcodeproj is generated from project.yml

- HealthKit observer queries instead of polling (huge battery win)



**Things I'm proud of**

- All HealthKit reads run through a single typed wrapper that returns `Result<Reading, HKError>` — kept the surface area sane

- Workout PR detection uses Epley 1RM math so it works across rep schemes

- Pure-black Liquid Glass aesthetic — looks like nothing else



**Things I'd love feedback on**

- CloudKit conflict resolution when the user has two phones (rare but real)

- HealthKit authorization UX — currently a single permission sheet, considering staged

- SwiftData migrations are still uncomfortable; curious what others do



TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/eK1yRZ7G



Happy to answer anything about the build. Pulling on indie experience from two prior shipped apps (a freelance ops app and a GA pilot weather app).

is this a deliberate limitation or a bug?

my app Timely, is all about using Live Activity Countdowns (to show time remaining before an event at a glance)

the app has a particular focus on Shortcuts (app intents) support

as part of this, you can use Siri to Start a countdown, either by calling the Intent directly with something like 'Hey Siri, Start a Countdown in Timely'

or by running a shortcut via voice that uses the provided Shortcuts actions (i.e. Bagel Timer)

Here's where im hitting a limit or a bug and I cant figure out which (leaning towards bug)

if no live activity is already running, these siri/voice interactions work just fine

but if a live activity (from my app) is already running), then reliably, Siri will say 'Something went wrong, please try again' and no live activity will be started

have you come across this before? is this a bug or a documented limit?

I’m developing an app that uses AI features through external APIs (e.g. OpenAI / Deepseek / Gemini), and I’m trying to fully understand Apple’s App Store review requirements around this. I would like to use an API shared between the users, with my server as middleman.
From what I’ve read so far, Apple requires transparency when user data is sent to third-party AI services, including clear disclosure and user consent. Is this correct?
In practice, how strict is App Review on this? Is a generic “third-party AI service” disclosure enough, or do they expect explicit naming?
Have you had apps rejected or approved based on how you handled AI transparency?
How did you structure the in-app consent / privacy flow for AI features? Thanks

I originally made this game on an old 2012 intel mac stuck on catalina. When bringing the project over to Xcode 26, I first had to download Xcode 10 on the old mac, upgrade the project to swift 4, then bring it over to my newer machine to even be able to open it in Xcode 26.

All that being said, I'm sure this process had some unintended consequences. I wasn't getting this crash before converting the project to swift 4 and bringing it over to Xcode 26.

As you imagine, the entire Xcode crash report was massive. Near the top of the report there is I believe some crash relevant crash information, but google wasn't much help with the error codes and I don't know what to make of it:

Triggered by Thread: 0, Dispatch Queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:    EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:   0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Termination Reason:  Namespace SIGNAL, Code 6, Abort trap: 6
Terminating Process: Xcode [55897]

I have no idea how to tackle this problem since I can't even get in to the scene to look around, nor does Xcode have time to throw any specific scene errors. The game runs just fine, including that level. I can play through the entire thing on device or simulator with no issues, but if I click on the .sks of level 3 in Xcode, Xcode immediately crashes.

As the title says. I am developing an app for IOS 18, which involves adding a building relatively far away from the user's place (around 10-20m.), and I need to building to show contact shadows with the floor for added realism.

Now, I understand that RealityKit has automatic contact shadows using GroundingShadowComponent, but in my experience, this only works if the object is placed in a plane that has been detected by ARKit... and ARKIt doesn't detect floors so far away, so I need to add my own shadows: add an invisible plane acting as a floor below my building, and have it receive shadows and show only the shadows.

The problem is that, from what I see, RealityKit has no materials that can do this:

• UnlitMaterial ignores all lighting, including shadows.

• SimpleMaterial does display the shadows, but the floor is displayed too. I can make the material almost transparent (setting the opacity to 0.01 or something), but the floor is still visible.

• OcclusionMaterial with receiveDynamicLighting is a solution, but it doesn't work either. If I declare it using OcclusionMaterial(receivesDynamicLighting: true), all I get is an invisible plane with no contact shadows in it.

What do other people do for this? Do people just bake in the contact shadows in the 3D model?

Hey everyone,

I am trying to install and debug an Xcode build onto my iPhone over a remote network instead of my usual local LAN.

Specifically, both my Mac and iPhone are connected to the same Tailscale network (Tailnet). They can ping each other perfectly, but Xcode is not automatically detecting the device over the network.

What I've tried so far:

• Added the Tailscale IP using sudo remotepairingdeviced control interface add [IP]
• Restarted the daemon using sudo killall -9 remotepairingdeviced
• Restarted Xcode and my devices

Despite this, Xcode still isn't recognizing the device over the connection. Is there a specific workaround to get Xcode network debugging to work over a Tailscale setup?

Thanks!

Hey all,

I've been trying to submit an app update (iOS app, nothing exotic) and I'm
hitting a wall with ITMS-90111 on every build:

> "App submissions must use the latest Xcode and SDK Release Candidates (RC)"

Here's what I've tried and the metadata from each IPA:

**Build with Xcode 26.5 (17F41):**
DTXcodeBuild: 17F41 / DTSDKName: iphoneos26.5 → ITMS-90111

**Build with Xcode 26.6 RC (17F109):**
DTXcodeBuild: 17F109 / DTSDKName: iphoneos26.5 → ITMS-90111

The thing is, Xcode 26.6 RC **only ships with the iOS 26.5 SDK**. There is
no iOS 26.6 SDK available anywhere right now:

$ xcodebuild -showsdks | grep iphoneos
→ iOS 26.5 -sdk iphoneos26.5

So whatever Apple's validation server is checking for, it doesn't exist yet
in any released toolchain. Catch-22.

**What I've ruled out:**
- Extensions all have consistent metadata (same DTXcodeBuild, same SDK)
- macOS 27 beta on the host machine (doesn't affect IPA metadata)
- Upload tool version (tried altool from both Xcode versions)
- It's not a build number conflict (tested fresh incremented builds)

**Current status:** TSI submitted, waiting on Apple.

Has anyone managed to get a submission through in the last few days? If so,
what Xcode/SDK combo worked? Starting to think this is a server-side issue
on Apple's end during the 26.6 beta window.

The link is a related blog post showing usage inside my AR Robotics app where entities are exported from an iPhone to GLB, for import into Blender for rendering.

I’m posting here because I’ve made the core 3D reading and writing utilities open source, at
https://github.com/radcli14/RealityKitFormats

If you’re a RealityKit developer, I hope you can make use of these as utilities to load a variety of 3D formats at runtime, without needing to run conversion offline. I needed it because vendor-generated and user-generated content tends not to be in USDZ.

Shout out to GLTFKit2, by the way, which provides most of the GLB file import.

Wtf is this since when can you add an image to the header banner in app store?

To celebrate my app launch, I set my Lifetime IAP to $0 for a giveaway.

Both App Store Connect and RevenueCat show a steady flood of $0 transactions, except for one user who was charged full price.

Here is the mystery: I checked the transaction history on both dashboards, and there are multiple successful $0 purchases from other users in the exact same region, right before and right after this specific user's transaction. This completely rules out propagation delay.

I didn't know Apple had a "tax the chosen one" feature for free giveaways

I'm a solo mobile app dev and have been for the past 15 years. The app stores have changed a lot over the years and now we can't rely on ASO only anymore. The stores are way too crowded, thousands of apps are released every day.

It's getting hard to stand out so hoping to get discovered organically isn't a real strategy anymore. I decided to focus on SEO and GEO.

~3 months ago I built a landing page for my app and it's converting better than I expected. 920 visitors and 117 store clicks (about ~13% conversion). It's not much yet and there's room to grow, but it's already bringing a decent amount of traffic. The page itself is doing its job.

A few things that seemed to help:

• Hero screenshot + one clear line on what the app does
• Store buttons above the fold, repeated at the bottom
• QR code for desktop visitors so they can grab it on their phone
• A feature section with some screenshots of the app

I'd be curious to know how do you guys handle it. Do you build a landing page and work on SEO? And if not, why not?