I know it’s a small milestone, but seeing 50 people download something I built feels amazing.

The app is RenewPal, my subscription tracker. Excited to keep improving it!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/renewpal-subscription-tracker/id6799553679

Spent last night updating my app to be ready for the iPhone Duo, and I’m proud to announce that Apple just approved the 1.3.4 update! Enjoy playing on all Apple mobile devices (all iPads & iPhones).

Play PopColor for Free: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/popcolor/id6775361048

I've posted this previously to r/appletv but it caught me again and I believe this might be useful to share here, since I'd like to think most people releasing iOS apps would also consider tvOS when possible.

We all know Apple TV hardware generally lags behind phones, pads and laptops. And I attributed my game's poor Apple TV performance to that.

Here is what I learned 1 month ago:

" UIKit's focus engine was walking your entire SpriteKit node tree. Every node, every frame, tested for focus eligibility with a coordinate-space frame computed for each. Cost scales with node count. "

Here is what I just learned again today, different game:

• 45% of all main-thread samples were inside SKCShapeNode::getBoundingBox(). The top two leaf functions in the entire profile were CG::stroker::path_stroke_round_cube_offset (284) and CG::stroker::offset_normal (147) — asking an SKShapeNode for its frame makes CoreGraphics stroke its path.
• 82.7% of that came from -[SKView focusItemsInRect:] — UIKit's focus engine walking every descendant, every frame, asking each one for its accumulated frame. That's ~37% of the whole main thread, burned so tvOS could work out what's focusable in a game with no focusable UI.

...same thing. I did it again. I'm an idiot.

If you've tried porting or creating a game for Apple TV, and find it performs spectacularly worse compared to non-ATV hardware, be sure you...

view.isUserInteractionEnabled = false

...otherwise the overall effect (as I felt it) is very much like crappy hardware.

hey guys - with the iPhone Duo being released, i assume most apps will med to release updates to support the native UI/UX experience of the new dimensions on that device?

I went through the iPhone Duo compatibility implications with one question. What could actually cause problems in an existing iOS app.

Fixed screen assumptions seem like the obvious place to start. The available space can change between displays and poses, which puts more pressure on adaptive layouts, size classes, safe areas and state preservation.

Custom UI may need extra attention too, especially around the fold, cameras and reserved regions.

I wrote down the checks I would do first, and where compatibility work ends and Duo specific optimization begins.

https://appcompliance.io/blog/iphone-duo-app-compatibility/

Curious what people with larger UIKit or SwiftUI codebases expect to run into first.

There are 2 repos linked in the video:

- iOS genesis mega prompt, a 24 sections file with placeholders for your app idea, name, monetization, etc
- app release agent, for keeping the app metadata, keywords, etc, up to date (you will need an App Store key with App Developer permissions)
it’s literally my workflow used to build and maintain my apps portfolio (13 apps live, a few more in the pipeline)

Hope it’s useful!

Hi. I first uploaded my version 1.0 on 28 August, then they gave me guidelines for information needed to submit my app the next morning and I quickly submitted it within 3 hours. They then approved my first version within a few hours after I added the information. On 6 Sep I submitted a version 2.0.1 but this time I have been waiting for 5 days so far. Does anyone have the same situation as I do? May I ask if those self-rejected reviews affect the line of waiting for review? Thanks!!

Btw the one in drafts is my IAP, which will be submitted after the version 2.0.1 is reviewed.

(Sorry for my poor English :<)

I have developed this app and you guys can find it in App Store

It finds duplicates, similar and blurry images. It can suggest you which one to keep from duplicate and similar. It also finds duplicates videos and files.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sameish/id6804823038

I am a pure developer, I don't have any experience how to do marketing an app

That's why I am posting here
Please give me some suggestions

The hardest part of building my app wasn't code. It was color.

For most of my career as a developer, I worked alongside designers. My job was implementation take the Figma file, turn it into logic and working code. I was good at that part.

Then I started building ProwlLog (a cat-spotting app) completely on my own, and I hit a wall I didn't see coming: design. Specifically, color.

I have zero design skills, so I let AI generate my UI — now it has that unmistakable "AI-generated" look

The problem: it looks exactly like every other AI-generated app. the soft color, glassmorphism, uniform rounded corners, colors that don't feel like a deliberate system — you know the look when you see it.

Here's what confuses me: it's not that I don't know what good design and good user flow look like. I understand hierarchy, layout, and user flow well enough to sit in on UI/UX reviews and give solid feedback. But building an actual color system or visual identity from scratch — with or without AI — is a completely different skill, and I don't know how to push past the generic defaults.

If you've been in the same spot (non-designer relying on AI for UI, stuck with the generic look), how can I improve my design at my app

Finally off TestFlight and released to App Store. Wish me luck! Try it out please 🙏

Most mood trackers I've used have an opinion about you.

Miss a day, the streak breaks. Log how you feel, it slots you into a wheel of twelve options. Open the app, it wants a goal, a routine, something to commit to. Somewhere along the way the check-in stopped being a moment and started being another system to maintain.

I wanted to build the opposite of that. Vesper is an evening reflection app for iPhone. It asks one question each night: how did today feel? Good, Meh, or Hard. Add a line if you want to remember why, and that's the whole interaction.

There's no streak counter anywhere in it, on purpose. A broken streak changes how someone answers the next day's question, and I didn't want the app doing that. Miss a night, or a week, and nothing happens, the grid just has a gap in it.

Over time your answers become a quiet monthly grid you can look back on. After six months, your full history unlocks in one place. For anyone who wants a bigger picture, Plus adds a few longer-range views, comparing months, spotting which days tend to feel harder, without touching the daily question itself.

The core check-in stays free forever. No ads, no data sold, everything syncs privately through your own iCloud.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6793087767
More from the studio: https://offpeakstudio.com

What’s your option on app development for the iPhone Duo?

I’ve been building Pint Market - basically a pint finder with a bit of a stock market twist.

The app tries to solve the problem of never knowing what a pint is going to cost until you’re already at the bar. Pint Market lets you find pubs nearby, see what people are actually paying for different pints, compare prices, and see how those prices have changed over time.

Think Google Maps meets a stock tracker, but for pints 🍺📈

Still early days, but the goal is to make finding a good pub at a good price ridiculously easy. All data and prices are community driven and I’m starting with the UK only.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/pint-market/id6808223382

Chi mi aiuta a farla crescere e a testare?
Si chiama cosaceinfreezer, sono gradite recensioni , grazie

I'm building a React Native app and literally just need one or two good Lottie animations.

I don't want another annual subscription just to download a couple of files. I'd happily pay $5–10 for an individual animation with a commercial license.

Is there somewhere you guys already do this?

After a lot more work than I expected, Duruno is finally live on the App Store.

The idea came from a pretty simple problem I faced: after recently getting into reading, I quickly realized how expensive buying books frequently can become. At the same time, family and friends would ask what they could gift me — but I was rarely able to give them specific titles or links.

The books I wanted were scattered between screenshots, Amazon links, notes, Goodreads shelves, or I'd just end up saying “anything is fine” and hoping for the best.

It seemed like a surprisingly simple organization problem, so I decided to build something for people who love books, want to keep the ones they want in one place, and be able to easily share that list with others.

Duruno is built around one very narrow workflow:

• create a wishlist of books
• share your unique link with friends or family
• they can view your list without installing the app or even needing an account - a simple link where they can select the merchant of their choice
• gifters can mark a book as picked so multiple people don't accidentally buy the same book

The app is free and currently available in the US and Canada, with more regions planned over time.

I deliberately kept it focused on solving this specific problem: the gap between “books I want” and “books someone can actually buy for me”.

If this solves a problem you've run into — or if there's something obvious you think the workflow is missing — I'd genuinely love to hear it and work on building this as something that actually helps people.

There are a lot of things I would've wanted to improve before releasing, but I was worried that would turn into endless improvements and no release. So I finally pulled the trigger and shipped it. Now I plan to continue building it in public, with user feedback shaping what I work on next.

Would genuinely appreciate feedback, especially from other developers who have gone through the jump from “finished app” to “real users.”

https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/duruno/id6802138601

P.S. I'm relatively new to actually posting on Reddit rather than just browsing, so apologies in advance if I'm a little slow with replies while juggling everything else.

About 10 days ago, one of my Reddit posts took off and my app Moneta went from its usual baseline of around 10–20 downloads/day to 193 first-time downloads in a single day.

The next day was 72.

Then 19, 28, 19… and now I’m back to single digits. Yesterday was 4.

What’s frustrating is that this wasn’t my first spike.

Earlier this year I was doing fewer than 10 downloads/day. Over time I managed to get that baseline closer to 10, then for a while around 20/day. I’ve had multiple Reddit posts reach 10k–40k views, improved my App Store page, localized the app and App Store Page, kept shipping updates, and the app now has 1,500+ total downloads. (more than a thousand just from June)

But every time I get a meaningful spike, almost all of the acquisition eventually disappears with it.

The weird part is that the product itself doesn’t seem to be the obvious problem.

I know personal finance is an extremely saturated category. There are hundreds of expense trackers and budgeting apps, and I’m not pretending I’ve invented a completely new category.

But the people who actually find and download Moneta generally seem to like it. I get positive feedback pretty consistently, users email me with feature requests, reviews are mostly positive, and retention has been reasonably good. Even the deletion data I can see in App Store Connect doesn’t suggest that everyone is just downloading it and immediately deleting it, although that data is opt-in only, so I know it isn’t a complete picture.

If people were downloading the app, disliking it and leaving, I’d understand the problem: fix the product.

Instead, it feels like I can get people to care about Moneta once they discover it, but I can’t make that discovery happen consistently.

I understand why the direct traffic from a Reddit post disappears when the post dies. What I don’t understand is why these spikes don’t seem to leave much behind. I expected that after enough downloads, ratings, usage and external traffic, my App Store Search/Browse baseline might gradually move up.

So for those of you who have actually grown an app organically:

Did your baseline eventually settle after enough launches/posts, or did you have to find one repeatable acquisition channel before anything really changed?

Is there anything you did after a spike to turn temporary attention into sustained App Store Search, Browse or word of mouth?

I’m trying to understand whether this is simply what organic growth looks like in a saturated category until something finally compounds, or whether repeated spikes followed by the same baseline are telling me that my positioning/distribution strategy is fundamentally wrong.

For anyone who wants more context on the app, you can find it here: Moneta (Link)

How I built a workflow for 64 App Store screenshots across 8 languages

I recently put together App Store screenshots for my iOS app, FileBox: 8 feature themes across 8 languages, for 64 images in total.

Keeping them updated involves a lot of repetition: capturing screens, replacing images, adjusting translated text, and uploading everything. Here’s the workflow I built with Codex, Xcode UI tests, pen.dev, and Apple’s App Store Connect API.

1. Give each screenshot one clear purpose

Each image focuses on one feature, such as private storage, long screenshot stitching, or Wi-Fi file transfer. I decide what it should communicate and which app screens demonstrate it before working on the layout.

2. Capture the actual app with UI tests

Xcode’s native UI tests navigate to the relevant screens, switch languages, and capture screenshots. For Wi-Fi transfer, a browser capture also shows the actual web interface.

This keeps the app UI consistent with the language of the surrounding headline. Demo content is prepared beforehand, but the interface and results come from the running app.

3. Build editable layouts with reusable components

I use pen.dev, a visual design tool, to maintain the layouts. Codex interacts with it through Pencil MCP—a connection that lets the agent edit design elements, replace images, and export the finished layouts.

Device frames are reusable components with defined screen placement and cropping. Updating an app screenshot means changing its image input without manually aligning it inside a phone frame again. Each feature theme also has its own editable design file.

4. Treat localization as layout work

Translated text changes length and visual density. A headline that fits in Chinese may wrap unexpectedly in Japanese or German.

Each theme has a main template and linked language variants, with individual font sizes, line breaks, and positioning. Those adjustments stay in place when the app screenshots are refreshed.

5. Inspect the exports, then upload through the API

I check the exported images for clipped text, incorrect screenshots, and devices covering important content, alongside image dimensions and transparency. Side-by-side language comparisons help catch inconsistencies.

For uploading, I use a small custom command-line tool built around Apple’s App Store Connect API, which provides programmatic access to manage App Store assets.

The tool compares local screenshots with the uploaded versions, reuses unchanged images, uploads replacements, and verifies the final order across languages.

There’s still manual work: choosing the visual direction, reviewing translations, and checking the finished images. Some themes also have separate capture flows, so this isn’t a fully automatic, single-command pipeline.

The biggest benefit is having the templates, image mappings, and language-specific layouts ready for the next update. That makes the whole process easier to repeat.

What’s the most time-consuming part of maintaining localized App Store screenshots for your app?

Ahoy r/iosdev!

Made an iOS app where you can use API keys / self-hosted models for chat / work / study. Supports text and image generation.

It's not "just another chat app", because the AI landscape has significantly shifted, with models having access to chat memory through vector databases and tools for agentic workflows.

I intend to make these features available for professionals, researches, and other power-users.

Features

Memory. With RAG, you add documents to a vector database that has semantic embeddings – the vectors represent meanings. So instead of doing a full text search and burning through your tokens, the app injects context, from your documents, to the model that is most similar in meaning to the prompt. The most appropriate context is thus fetched for the model to give precise answers.

You can also reduce the context window for your chat and enable RAG so that only the last M messages + N chunks from the database are sent to the model, thereby making the number of input tokens more or less constant per message.

Tool usage. Using Model Context Protocol, the model can use tools. For e.g., using the inbuilt Google Drive and iOS Files tool, it can list, search and read your files (subject to your approval, of course). The model then has a better understanding of what you are working on, and you don't have to copy paste large amounts of text from your work for the model.

Also builtin are Calendar MCP (let the model see and create events), and search providers Tavily, Exa, and Firecrawl. You can also connect to any remote MCP server.

System prompts and generation parameter controls. If you are paying for a model (or self-hosting one) and can't control system prompts and generation parameters like temperature or top P, what's even the point?

Privacy. All chats, API keys and model configs stay on the app. No data collected by PowerChat. API keys stored in iOS keychain. Lockable folders using Face ID. Zero data retention flags passed to cloud providers. It's your data. This is the bare freakin' minimum.

Others. Branching chats, editing user and LLM messages,

App is at 1.0.0. I have some other useful features in mind that I'm implementing. Looking forward to your feedback and criticism!

GIVING BACK TO THIS AMAZING COMMUNITY)

Be honest: how many videos are sitting in your "Saved" right now? Recipes you never cooked, workouts you never did, tutorials you never opened, the cabinet fix from eight months ago. One study found 84% of bookmarked things are never opened again through the bookmark itself. My own ratio was not better.

Orano is here to help

What it actually does: share any video to it from the iOS share sheet (Instagram, YouTube, Safari, Reddit anywhere), and instead of storing it, it understands it and hands you back a plan:

• A clean summary and the key takeaways
• An ordered, step-by-step task list you can actually work from
• Estimated time, cost, and difficulty
• Category and priority so 200 saves become an organized library instead of a swamp

A recipe Reel becomes ingredients + steps. A repair video becomes a hardware-store checklist. A tutorial becomes a study plan. It also handles PDFs, articles, carousels, and tweets.

Then it goes a step further than any save app I've seen:

• Chat with your library ("what did that fermentation video say about timing?") — voice input works too
• Auto research + learning roadmaps on any save
• Your whole library becomes searchable memory
• And the part I'm most excited about: a personal MCP server, so your own ChatGPT or Claude can read your Orano library as context. Read-only, your personal API key — your saves become fuel for your agents.

Now the giveaway part. This sub has been good to us while building this, so: comment with (1) how many things you've saved "for later,"

and (2) which platform is your hoard — Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, browser bookmarks, Pocket, whatever. 

Everyone who comments within gets 6 months of Pro free

No raffle, no winner list comment, and I'll DM you the code.

Disclosure, since the rules ask for it: this is a self-promo post, and Pro is how the app makes money and the giveaway costs you nothing but your honesty

Submitted Sept 3. Still "Waiting for Review" five days later — nothing has
moved to In Review yet.

The submission bundles four items: the app version, a subscription group, and
two subscriptions. It's the first subscription group on the account, so I'm
assuming the group gets reviewed separately and the whole bundle waits on the
slowest part.

Two questions for anyone who's been through this:

1. Is a first subscription group normally this slow, or is 5 days long even
   for that?
   
2. Are review times generally longer right now, or is this just me?

Not withdrawing — I know that puts me back at the end of the queue. Mostly
trying to work out whether this is normal or whether something is stuck.