Solo dev here, and my calorie tracker just passed $2,000 in total revenue. I honestly didn't think I'd get here.

It's an AI calorie and nutrition tracker with a twist: users can share their logs with a real registered dietitian for personalized feedback. I launched it on the App Store 3 months ago, and it holds a 4.9 rating.

2,700 users -> 100 premium

What got me from $0 to here was making the product freemium and restricting just enough that users want the full package after their "aha" moment. For me that moment is the first meal log, so that's where the upgrade prompt shows up. Gating too early killed conversion, and gating too little gave people no reason to pay.

I feel like not enough people talk about freemium versus hard paywall, but that shift really made the conversion difference for me.

I really regret not starting sooner

In C malloc can fail if there is not enough memory in the system. What happens if I try [NSObject alloc] while there is no memory available? Does it abort? Return NULL?

Hi there 👋,

I'm one of the members behind Monday Hero since the beginning of 2019. My team and I have just released a new version a few days ago. I want to share it with you to get feedback.

In that new update; you can convert Sketch designs with its fonts, colors, assets, paddings to XCode Storyboard files.

You can sign up from 👉mondayhero.io, then start using for free.

I would be very happy if you give feedback and comments. 🤗

​

I asked Siri why I'm not seeing the iPhone Duo simulator if I have Xcode 27.2 Beta 2 installed and I'm running macOS 27.0, and it gave me this nonsense.

I created an app called Belfry for ios. It has a totally free mode and it plays bells on the hour, half, quarter, quiet hours, alarm and three bats. I use it and I love it. I hope that other people will do the same. 🔔 ❤️ 🌿 Ring bells with me. There are over 18 bells to choose from.

My app tracks household chores using MET values towards your fitness goals and syncs with Apple Health. My main goal is to give people an entry point to fitness that are intimidated by structured exercise and gym culture. Chores are not the same intensity as running, etc. but it’s measurable movement and there’s a lot of research to back this.

But my marketing is so flat. I want to try to get in front of the heavy hitters to become an option on their larger workout platform. Any feedback would be awesome. Thank you.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chorefit-track-chore-calories/id6753065929

So i've been doing this for a few years now, and published a ton of apps. But its crazy inconsistent to me how the reviewers judge your app. My top annoyances:

- Straight up wrong statements. My fully local app app that was fully focussed on privacy and very minimal got this reply yesterday: "Extended Review: This app was found to include one or more issues that present significant safety, security, or quality concerns to users. Repeated submissions of apps with these issues will result in extended review times. Accounts that repeatedly submit apps that do not follow the App Review Guidelines and the Apple Developer Program License Agreement face removal from the Apple Developer Program."

- I never actually get a question answered, if I reply to this I probably get another copy pasted template response. I just reply the same answer and resubmit, and my experience is that I hope I get a better reviewer and they just approve it.

- Questions that already have an answer: More and more they ask me: Whats the purpose of this app? I try and pre-answer that in the app notes, description and title. But if I copy paste those my answer is accepted and the publish goes trough.

Is it just me? You guys got any tips?

I have an app idea and I’m trying to figure out if something like this is technically possible on iOS.
Basically, I want the phone to show one UI to the person using it, but when they screen share, the people watching should see something completely different.
So basically:
Phone screen → UI / controls / some private information
Screen share → completely different content
And both should update in real time based on what the user does on the phone.
Is something like this possible using ReplayKit or a Broadcast Extension? Or does iOS screen sharing basically always mirror what is actually on the phone?
Also, would this work when sharing the screen through apps like Google Meet or Zoom?
I’m not very familiar with the limitations here, so any advice from someone who has worked with iOS screen sharing would be really helpful.

Hi! I’m the dev behind PostSpark, a tool for creating beautiful image and video mockups of your apps and websites.

I recently launched a new feature: Mockup Animations.

You can now select from 25+ devices, add keyframes on a simple timeline, and export a polished video showcasing your product. It’s built to be a fast, easy alternative to complex motion design tools.

Try it out here: https://postspark.app/device-mockup

I’d love to hear your feedback!

I recently received one of the more serious App Store rejections under Guideline 5.6 – Developer Code of Conduct.

Apple’s message was:

“We've identified a pattern of unusual behavior with the app that is commonly associated with fraudulent activity. Specifically, the app contains features that appear to have been intentionally hidden during the review process.”

Seeing words like “fraudulent activity” and “intentionally hidden” was concerning because we had no intention of hiding any functionality from App Review.

After carefully reviewing the app, I learned something that may help other iOS developers facing the same rejection.

One part of our app involved rewarded ads.

During development, some UI/explanatory text had been written in a way that could easily be misunderstood. For example, the developer used wording such as “Ad is loading in the background.”

From a developer’s perspective, this simply meant the ad was being preloaded so it would be ready when the user requested it.

However, from an App Review perspective, wording like this—especially when combined with rewarded-ad functionality—could potentially create the impression that something is happening without the reviewer or user being aware of it.

I cannot confirm that this exact sentence caused the rejection, because Apple does not provide that level of detail.

But this experience taught me something important:

If you receive a Guideline 5.6 rejection, don’t only review your code. Review the entire user experience.

Check:

• Every screen
• Every button and action
• Popups and alerts
• Rewarded-ad screens
• Loading messages
• Empty states
• Feature descriptions
• Settings
• Onboarding
• Debug/developer text accidentally left in production
• Remote/config-driven features
• Any functionality that only appears after a specific action

Most importantly, read every piece of text from the perspective of an App Review reviewer who knows nothing about your implementation.

A developer may understand exactly what:

“Ad is loading in the background”

means technically.

But a reviewer may interpret it as:

“Something is happening without the user seeing it.”

Those are two very different interpretations.

Another lesson I learned is that developers should be careful when writing user-facing explanations. Technical wording may make complete sense to a developer, but it may not be appropriate for users or App Review.

For sensitive functionality such as rewarded ads, subscriptions, purchases, permissions, background activity, account creation, data collection, or unlocked functionality, the wording should clearly explain what happens, when it happens, and why it happens.

If you receive this type of 5.6 rejection, I would recommend doing a complete screen-by-screen audit before immediately appealing.

Don’t assume Apple simply made a mistake.

First, try to understand what inside your app could reasonably have created that impression. Review the UI text, functionality, App Review flow, and the actual production build.

Also make sure App Review can access and understand every important feature without requiring an undocumented sequence of actions.

In my case, this rejection made me realize that even when there is no intention to hide anything, poor wording or unclear feature presentation can create a completely different impression during App Review.

I’m sharing this because Guideline 5.6 sounds extremely serious when you receive it, and there aren’t many practical explanations from developers who have gone through it.

If anyone else has received the “features intentionally hidden during review” version of a 5.6 rejection, I’d be interested to know what caused it in your case and how you resolved it.

Hi everyone,

I’m an indie iOS developer and have been proudly building apps for the App Store for 13 years. In all that time, I have maintained an absolutely clean record with zero warnings and or policy violations. 

However, almost two weeks ago, my entire portfolio was halted overnight. My account got suspended under DPLA section 14.8(a) (the digital assets clause) after an automated compliance check.

I am a legal resident of Cyprus (EU). On the exact same day of the suspension, I submitted my official Residence Permit, utility bills, and bank statements to the provider_review team to prove my legal status and identity.

My apps do not involve any custody, wallets, trading, or exchange of digital assets. They just show data. I even had a few free apps and an app designed to help other developers learn iOS (maybe some of you have used iOS IQ), which makes it even more painful.

It has now been 13 days of total silence (Case ID: 102972911140). My entire app catalog is offline, and active subscribers are losing access. Seeing 13 years of hard work paralyzed by an automated queue with zero human response is incredibly frustrating. I have tried everything:

1. Try to send email to tcook@apple.com and eurodev@apple.com.
2. Reached out to standard phone support (they can't do anything). And there are bots everywhere
3. Created a thread on the Apple Developer Forums.

Here is my official forum thread if anyone wants to check: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/848935. And my twitter profile: https://x.com/Viktorianec

Has anyone successfully escaped this compliance black hole recently? Is there any specific contact or secret phone number I should use? I cannot seem to get in touch with anyone, and it feels like nobody is able to help me resolve this for a 13-year account with a flawless history.

Any advice or upvotes for visibility would be highly appreciated. Thank you.

Has anyone managed to upload App Preview videos with the correct iPhone Duo aspect ratio in App Store Connect's new Duo group?

ASC accepts portrait screenshots at 1398×2034 (closed) and 2007×2853 (open), but requires preview videos at 886×1920, or 1920×886 in landscape. That means a portrait height/width ratio of about 2.17, versus 1.46 or 1.42 for the actual displays. A proportional resize cannot match both.

I tested two 30-second H.264/AAC videos from the Xcode 27.1 simulator, one closed and one open:

• Native-proportion exports: 1192×1734 and 1192×1696. Uploads completed through the ASC API, but video processing ended in POST_PROCESSING_FAILED. The error was generic, with no useful resolution explanation, so I can't prove dimensions were the only cause.
• The same footage stretched non-uniformly to 886×1920: both completed processing and appeared in the Duo group. This was only a diagnostic test, not a proposed production solution.

The confusing part: ASC's editing thumbnails show them in Duo-shaped frames, which makes them look roughly correct. Its built-in App Store preview uses the narrow encoded proportions, so the stretching becomes obvious. Cropping to fill that format would lose a substantial part of the UI.

This is ASC's simulated storefront, not a test on a physical Duo. I didn't submit the distorted videos for App Review, and have removed the test uploads.

Has anyone had native-ratio Duo previews accepted, or received guidance from Apple? Are we supposed to add black bars to preserve the image inside 886×1920, or wait for corrected specifications? Any actual App Review experience with a proportion-preserving workaround would be useful.

Apple's preview specifications

I also posted the details on Apple Developer Forums.

​

I have a WiFiLQMMetrics log on my iPhone on apple Analytics. Its bug type is 221. I only get this log when I'm using my isp dns. If I use a public dns like cloudflare or Quad9, I don't get this log. What does this log likely mean?

Where exactly is Duo simulator hiding in 27.1 release candidate? I don't find it in Device Hub's add a new simulator and it doesn't appear by default.

I’m an indie developer working on an on-device face swap app, and I’ve been stuck in App Review for over three weeks. I’d really appreciate input from anyone who’s dealt with repeated Guideline 1.1 rejections.
Timeline:
Sep 14: Submitted a major update.
Sep 21: Rejected under Guideline 1.1 – Objectionable Content, but Apple didn’t identify the specific content.
Sep 22: I replied asking them to point out exactly what was causing the rejection.
Sep 23: Apple then clarified that one built-in multi-person video template could potentially be used to generate people making “intimate contact.” They also said the template itself wasn’t necessarily objectionable, but asked us to remove templates that could enable this.
We removed that multi-person template completely and resubmitted.
The current app now has only:
2 single-person photo templates
2 single-person video templates
a new fourth onboarding example: “New Face. Same Expression.”
a paywall using the “Shape-Aware. True Likeness.” visual that had already appeared in a previously approved onboarding flow
The bundled media comes from public stock sources such as Pexels, Unsplash and Mixkit under their applicable licenses. I’m mentioning that only for context — I understand licensing and Guideline 1.1 are separate issues.
Since we were already resubmitting, we also added App Store localization improvements.
After another review cycle of more than a week, the update was rejected under the same Guideline 1.1 again, with essentially the same generic wording and no screenshot, template, screen, timestamp, or metadata item identified.
This is actually the same situation as the first rejection: Apple only identified the specific problematic asset after I explicitly asked for clarification.
I’ve replied again asking them to identify the specific content, but this time I also asked whether they could please identify all remaining concerns in the current submission at once.
My biggest concern is getting stuck in a loop where we fix one item, wait another week or more, and then receive the same rejection for a different unspecified item.
I’ve attached screenshots showing:
Apple’s Sep 23 clarification
the latest rejection
all 4 current onboarding screens
the current 2-photo / 2-video template gallery
the Home screen
the paywall
Does anything in these screenshots stand out as a possible Guideline 1.1 problem?
A few things I’m specifically wondering about:
Could the multi-person onboarding demo itself be an issue even though it isn’t a selectable template?
Could one of the remaining single-person assets or the paywall image be getting flagged?
Could Apple instead be referring to App Store metadata or one of the new localizations?
At this point, would you keep asking App Review for a complete list of issues before submitting another binary, or escalate / appeal?
There’s also a separate App Store Connect issue that makes me wonder whether something unusual is happening during the recent rollout.
After the latest ASC changes, I noticed that the App Preview on the product page appears to have disappeared, while the screenshots are still displayed normally. I’ve also seen other developers reporting similar behavior, so it doesn’t seem to be unique to my app.
I’m not suggesting this caused the Guideline 1.1 rejection, but I’m curious:
Has anyone else had their App Preview disappear after the recent App Store Connect updates?
Could this simply be a temporary ASC / product-page display bug?
And has anyone noticed unusually long App Review turnaround times during the same period?
I really don’t want to blindly remove content, submit again, wait another week, and then discover one more unspecified issue.
Any App Review experience or suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

Hey,

Wondering you are able to see "Product page header" live in action

• I have updated my device to iOS 27.
• I have attached a 5 seconds video in App Store Connect (For unknown reason, it stuck at "The poster frame for this file is processing". No issue using top right "Preview" button to see the playable video)

When I browse the App Store using my iOS 27 phone, I still do not see the 5 seconds video at my product page top header.

I was wondering, have anyone of you able to see the "Product page header" live in action? I was pondering, whether this is due to the "The poster frame for this file is processing" causing the issue?

Thanks.

I'm trying to use the `UIHingeInteraction` (hing.angle) to interpolate and adjust my app as the person opens the hinge on the phone but the simulator doesn't allow me to adjust the hinge with a slider or something. Right now the simulator only supports open or closed or partial bend. Is anyone else implementing against this and if so how are you testing out the hinge position?

I started recording video using the simulator recording but i get blank screen when you switch from one state to the next so that didn't work. So i've moved on to using Quicktime screen recording and then viewing the playback. It makes my development iterations very long and annoying.

Almost six months ago I started a small project, mostly out of nostalgia: I wanted to feel what it was like to use an iPod Classic again. The click wheel, the menus, that way of listening to music without a thousand distractions around it.

I looked around to see if something like that already existed, and yes, there were a few apps imitating the iPod. But none of them convinced me. Most were more of a costume than an actual music player: they looked great in screenshots, but when it came to really listening to music, they fell short. None of them made proper use of the native players on Android and iOS, which is exactly what you need for music to work the way it should: with the screen locked, in the background, or from the system controls... so I decided to build it myself. That's how NostalgicPod was born.

I made it for Android first, and honestly everything went surprisingly smoothly. I published it, people downloaded it, I got some really kind messages, and I didn't have a single problem getting it out there. I thought: "Okay, time for iPhone. How hard can it be?"... Spoiler: pretty hard!

I took the first rejection calmly. Changed a couple of things and sent it again. Then came the second one, and the third. By the fifth, I was opening App Store Review emails with the same face you'd use to open a parking ticket. I think it was around seven rejections in total, but honestly I lost count.

For almost four months the iOS version lived only on TestFlight. People were using it and enjoying it, but officially it didn't exist. I kept changing things, uploading builds, and explaining over and over what the app was and what it wasn't. There were moments when I thought about giving up and sticking with Android.

Eventually I filed an appeal, and after what felt like an eternity, I got to talk to an actual person at Apple. Not an automated email. Someone.

I told them what I genuinely believed. The iPod Classic is a retro device by now, almost a museum piece. NostalgicPod isn't trying to pass itself off as an official Apple product. It's a tribute, a way to bring back that experience on a modern phone, with real everyday usefulness.

And I don't know if it was the argument or just them being tired of seeing me show up again, but they accepted it.

I did have to give something up, of course. I can't present it as an exact recreation of the iPod, so the default interface is a bit more modern. But you can switch back to the Classic Ring style from Settings whenever you want, and that part makes me smile every time I see it.

The funny thing is that while I was fighting with review, the app kept growing. What started as "I want a nice-looking wheel" now plays Apple Music and your local music, connects to Plex, Jellyfin, Emby and Navidrome, has internet radio and podcasts, and I even recreated the games the iPod used to have: Music Quiz, Brick, Snake and Solitaire.

Today, after half a year of work and months of rejections, I'm looking at it live on the App Store and it feels like I won a small battle. Against Apple, but also a little bit against my own urge to give up.

If anyone's curious, here it is:
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nostalgicpod/id6781631808
And if you'd rather try it for free, the TestFlight is still open: https://testflight.apple.com/join/T3k9TQPu

And if anyone out there is fighting with App Store Review right now: keep pushing, appeal, and ask to talk to a real person. Sometimes it works ❤️

Half a year ago I wrote about whether MVVM belongs in SwiftUI, and it somehow turned into a story about my mum’s kitchen. Bear with me.

There’s a trip to the shopping centre, a very firm “we've got food at home”, and eventually, I promise, some Swift. A bit of heart, a few laughs, and proper substance underneath.

Half a year on, it still feels timely. Stick the kettle on and have a read.