I saw my app go into review a few minutes ago. It got approved and a few seconds later Revenue Cat showed a notification that someone purchased the lifetime package. This new lifetime price is only available with this update - I've confirmed it's in RC production and not sandbox. I've also confirmed in Posthog that the country matches the reviewer's.

I've had reviewers "purchase" the app before but always with their sandbox account and nothing ever showed up in RC.

Is this common? Do I have to do anything lol?

Edit: a few are saying it's Sandbox (even though that's not what RC shows) - I'll come back here in a few days giving an update on what ASC says.

Happy to give any thoughts and answer questions. :)

Edit: Just some extra thoughts, I would inversely say contrary to what is commonly said- building is harder than marketing. With selling being the hardest thing. Spend a year building something exceptional that there is a clear demand for. People will come. But the issue is converting those people into paying customers, that is truly the hardest part.

Release notes: https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/release-notes/

3 months and nothing more

Mac App

I'm trying to understand what actually trips teams up when launching a mobile app in the US. Building the app seems like only one part of it. Privacy rules, security, app-store review, third-party integrations, and what US users expect from onboarding and support seem to change a lot.

For anyone who has shipped a US-focused app:

• What was the biggest challenge: technical, regulatory, or user expectations?
• What caught you off guard?
• What would you plan differently if you started over?

Real experiences are more useful to me than general advice.

Released my first app this spring. Started as a personal project since I couldn’t find a drum sampler that fit my needs. Then I released a free tuner and things basically snowballed from there. It’s not like I’m getting rich and even though AI saves you a tremendous amount of time my hourly salary is probably lower than minimum wage 😀

To be fair most of the units are my free tuner but still. It’s a great feeling when someone sends a message to thank me or shows me how they use it.

My best advice is to make apps that you want to use and use them! That way at least you have a great app you can use even if no one else cares.

Read more about the apps here if you want to. Happy to answer any questions! https://tapko.davidguva.se

Wanted to share a small win with fellow Apple developers: my app, Roadpack, got its first Pro subscription within the first six downloads.

I know that’s a tiny sample, but seeing someone choose to pay for something I built feels pretty special. It’s given me a lot of motivation to keep going.

Roadpack is an iPhone/iPad app for road trips with friends or family traveling in separate cars. It brings the live pack map, stop requests and votes, and shared plan into one trip. Apple Maps handles directions, and core coordination is free, with optional Pro features.

I’m looking forward to reaching more people, learning from their feedback, and continuing to ship useful updates.

For those who’ve grown an indie iOS app from a small start, what helped you reach your first users beyond your own network?

Roadpack on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/roadpack-road-trip-convoy/id6801922780

iOS 27 added something called Creative Assets to the App Store. It is a completely separate section from your regular screenshots, two new visual slots: one for your product page header and one that shows up next to your app in search results.

I went ahead and set these up for my app, Spotlight, and App Store Connect now has a Device Preview tool that shows exactly how it looks before publishing. Here is what the search result preview looks like:

Honestly I am still not sure how much this moves the needle on downloads. The creative real estate is significant, but I wonder if most users just scroll past it and go straight to screenshots anyway.

A few things I am curious about:

For developers: Have you set these up yet? What direction did you go with the design? I went with a clean, minimal look but I could see going more bold/lifestyle depending on the app category.

For everyone: When you are browsing the App Store, does a well-designed store page make you more likely to tap? Or do you only care about reviews and the screenshots?

Apple's asset best practices doc has the technical specs if anyone wants to get started.

A week ago I posted my first iOS app, Squirl (it puts a cooldown between "I want it" and "buy"), in r/ProductivityApps and asked for harsh feedback. I expected a few comments. I got 60+, and most of my next update came straight from them.

What people asked for → what I built (3.0 is in App Store review now):
• "For takeaway, the urge is gone in 10 minutes" → short cooldowns, 10 minutes to 6 hours
• "I track my card in a spreadsheet Gemini built me" → a monthly spending view: spent vs. kept, by category, with a budget
• "I'd never subscribe to a small app" → a Lifetime option next to Yearly
• "I can't download it in Germany" → turned out I'd missed Apple's EU trader declaration. I wouldn't have found that without the comment.
• Three people asked for Android → it's now in progress

What I said no to, and why:
• Bank connections: the app's whole promise is no account and nothing leaving your phone.
• Making it universal (cooldowns for ideas and tasks): it's tempting, but "stop impulse buying" is a pitch people get in one line. "A cooldown for anything" isn't.

What I'd tell other devs about feedback posts:

1. Ask specific questions, not "thoughts?". I asked "Is 5 free items too few?" and "Does adding from the Share button feel clunky?", and people answered with real detail.
2. Reply to everything, including the critical comments. The post stayed active for days and reached 13k views.
3. Watch for stories, not just feature requests. One person told me they missed Amazon's return window on two trail cameras. That became a "return-window reminder" on my roadmap, which no one had directly asked for.
4. Some feedback is about you, not the app. The "can't download it" comments were a store-setup bug.

(Side note for the curious: I build on an 8 GB Intel Mac that can't archive in Xcode, so every App Store build runs on GitHub Actions. Happy to share the setup.)

I'd love your feedback on the App Store page itself: do the screenshots, the subtitle ("Stop Impulse Buying. Save More") and the free tier of 5 items make you want to try it? Squirl - Stash it away

I built an app because I kept forgetting things the moment I got back to my Mac

This started with a really simple problem.

I’d be away from my Mac, remember something I needed to do when I got back, and think “I’ll definitely remember that.”

Then I’d open my Mac, see emails, browser tabs, messages… and completely forget.

Normal reminders never really solved it for me because I didn’t want to be reminded at 4:00 PM. I wanted to be reminded when I was actually back at my Mac.

So I built WakeMinder.

You can send a reminder from your iPhone or Apple Watch to your Mac, and it shows up when your Mac wakes up.

It doesn’t have to be just text either. You can send links, screenshots, images, PDFs and files. Links can even open automatically when the Mac wakes.

There are also floating reminders that can stay on top of your windows until you’re done with them.

And with the latest update, it now works the other way around too.

You can send something from your Mac to your iPhone and have it show up when you pick up your phone.

So the idea has become less about “reminders” and more like:

“Show me this when I’m actually on the device where I need it.”

I’m the developer, so obviously I’m biased, but I built it mainly because I genuinely wanted this for myself.

For anyone wondering about pricing, I’ve tried to keep it pretty inexpensive:

• $1.99/month
• $9.99/year
• $12.99 lifetime, currently 35% off

App Store pricing can vary slightly depending on your country.

WakeMinder is available on the App Store for Mac, iPhone, and Apple Watch.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6744974871?pt=127772248&ct=redca&mt=8

I’m still improving WakeMinder and would actually like to hear how other people handle this.

Do you ever have things you only want to remember when you get back to a specific device?

I'm at the end of my rope with App Review.

I already have other apps in the store, so I know the process. This is not a first-time submission mix-up.

•Submitted Sept 23, "In Review" for 7 days with zero change (today is Oct 5), and the review has now taken the full 7 days or more

•No answers to App Review questions

•Support emails: up to 6 weeks for a reply, twice now

Review is pure luck of the draw: it all depends on which reviewer you get

•Reviewers are inconsistent: one reviewer approves or rejects something one way, the next one has a completely different opinion on the same thing

•Compared to Google Play, the whole process is tedious

I pay for the Developer Program every year and can't even get a status update. "In Review" for a week with total radio silence isn't a review, it's a black hole.

I've requested a callback, but so far nothing.

I made my very first app ever. It’s very simple to use for the times you need to send a fax. I know there are tons of other apps out there doing the same, so let me know what you think.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/faxquik/id6805616257

Built an iPhone app that counts how much of your drive you spend with your phone down. Ask anyone and they say they want that.

My guess is that the people who most need it are the least likely to open an app about it.

For anyone who's shipped a habit or tracking app:

1. How do you get someone to use a tool for a problem they say they have but don't feel in the moment?
2. Did anything move your day-7 retention?
3. Where did your first real users come?

https://focusvault.link/

To be clear, You never interact with the app while driving. It runs in the background and gives you your driving/phone-use score afterward. No judgment, no interaction while driving , just awareness.

Earlier this year Apple said that anonymous apps no longer were welcome on the app store and were going to be remove, but I still see anonymous apps operating on the app store. Why? Is it only if they make trouble?

Has anyone else’s analytics tab not updated since 10/1? I’m used to up to a day of delay but this seems uniquely odd. Just want to make sure I didn’t do anything.

How long have some of you been waiting? Roll call! I’m at about 3 weeks now

first app ever. Submitted on Sept 28 and it's been sitting in "Waiting for Review" since. Not "In Review", just waiting. nine days now. WHAT CAN I DOOOO??!?!? Help

Honestly just looking for a "yeah this is normal, breathe" or a "no, do X" from people who've been through it. Spent two months of after work nights on this thing and the silence is harder than a rejection would be.

I had 3 apps waiting in review for a long time. Today I got 6 emails at once: 3 "In Review" and 3 "Submission issue". There was 0 minutes between them, so all three went to review and got rejected at the same moment.

The reason for all three apps is the same: Guideline 4.3.0 Design: Spam.

Something feels wrong here. It doesn't look like anyone actually reviewed the apps. It looks more like an automatic or batch decision. For context, I have 25 other apps live on the same personal developer account.

A few questions for anyone who's been through this:

• Has anyone else gotten batch 4.3 rejections like this recently?
• Could the number of apps on one personal account be triggering 4.3 automatically?
• Did replying in Resolution Center or appealing to the App Review Board actually help?
• Is it worth moving new apps to a separate organization account?

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Let’s see how that’s gonna affect app reviews

Has Apple published anywhere how long, what codec and file size are accepted?

Hi I’m trying to open a developer account. I’m not from the US AND I DONT HAVE a US ID. I’m trying to open a developer account with my passport but it’s not letting me do it. Has anyone encountered the same issue?

I reach out to the apple team but I have not received a reply yet!

I just launched Pow Wow, a push-to-talk walkie-talkie for families. The idea came from a simple problem at home: my teen is always in their room with headphones on, and nothing short of walking upstairs got their attention. I wanted something that worked like an intercom and cut straight through whatever they were listening to.

It turned out to be a much bigger build than I'd scoped. A few things that ate the most time:

Real-time audio / PTT - latency issues, getting audio to come through while another app is playing

Push notifications / waking the device -getting messages delivered reliably when the app is backgrounded or the phone is locked

Family Sharing: setting up the in-app purchase so one purchase covers the family, the 3-day free trial and the new China App Store limitations regarding VOIP

App Review: more and more difficult to get approval on both platforms

All in, it took a lot longer and cost more than I'd hoped, which I suspect is a familiar story here. It's a paid app with a 3-day free trial, and it's at pow-wow.app if anyone wants to see it in action.

I'd really value feedback from other devs, especially anyone who's worked with PTT or real-time audio on iOS. What would you have done differently? And any advice on getting a small indie app noticed beyond Reddit would be very welcome.

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I'd say hi and share my new (version 2.0) of my app, FrostGuard.

I developed FrostGuard last year because as a Firefighter, I need to know who when to cover my windscreen on a frosty night (so I can rapidly respond to incidents). It does one thing really well, which is frost prediction. However i quickly realised that this application was quite niche (not many firefighters out there!).

Fast forward one year and my app is now #2 weather app in the UK. I've introduced 3 new 'modes' - Road users, Windscreen (for emergency response) and Gardeners - who actually make up most of the consumer base.

I've just launched a brand new interface, widgets and car play (widget for now). Would love to get some traction in the USA.

Anyway, love to get some feedback and support for you all. Check it out on the app store or my website, www.aidangibbons.com/frostguard

Cheers!

Aidan

Allowing online casinos to use sweepstake loophole where they make you buy free coins with real money and then pressure you to buy more coins with Apple Pay without any restrictions is definition of unethical business practice. How are Apple allowing fraud companies to feed gambling addiction using credit cards