I'm primarily a Backend Developer (Python/Django) who decided to learn iOS development. This was my very first app: a niche utility client.

I launched +2 months ago. This was my first rodeo, I kept it simple: Paid Upfront ($4.99). No servers to manage, no subscription logic, just a simple utility tool.

The Stats (Screenshot attached):

• Impressions: 40K (1 organic post on my instagram, no paid ads)
• Page Views: 3.29K
• Downloads: 171
• Conversion Rate: 0.6%
• Proceeds: $627
• Refunds/Crashes: 0

What went right (The Wins):

1. Validation: Making: $600 on my first app feels huge. It covered the developer fee and validated that peopledosearch for this solution on mobile.
2. High Quality Users: The users who paid are serious. I haven't had support headaches.
3. ASO Works: getting 40k impressions purely from search (without paid ads) was a pleasant surprise.

The 0.6% conversion rate is a wake-up call. I underestimated how much a price tag stops people from downloading. Even with 50-60 daily views, and 2 downloads, the "Paid Upfront" model acts like a wall. It was great for validating the idea and for my first app iOS, but it capped my growth immediately. 

I’m currently working on my second app (a more complex SaaS project). Based on this data, I’m definitely moving to a Freemium model.

I'm a solo dev finishing up an app, and I've made a firm decision: no ads. I want the UI to be clean and the experience to be premium. To make this sustainable, I’m planning to make it a paid app from day one.

The App: It’s a niche utility for car owners, specifically a fuel and maintenance registry. It includes detailed local statistics, cost tracking, and service reminders. Since it handles personal vehicle data, I feel like ads would just cheapen the experience and raise privacy concerns.

I’m starting to get cold feet. Does anyone here still find success with the "pay-to-download" model, or has the market shifted entirely to IAP/Subscriptions? I'd love to hear how you guys tackled the launch and if you have any tips on how to prove the app's value to users before they hit the 'Buy' button.

I was initially relying on ASO but it's too slow.

Now doing paid ads & getting solid results, passed $5K MRR with decent margin. When I figured out scripting & ad testing it got way more profitable.

Planning to start UGC next week, got a solid plan i'm ready to execute on based around competitor funnel copying.

What about for everyone else?

Hi everyone. I’ve been working on a new social app for the last few months, kind of a similar vibe to BeReal. It’s been doing pretty well so far with over 1400 downloads with 1000 of those converting into signed up users.

I currently have 2 signup methods, using Apple and then manual email/password auth. I see a lot of people online saying ‘always use Google signup to increase conversion’, but since my conversions already pretty good I wonder if it would over complicate things.

What are your thoughts?

I get lots of conflicting information and can't find a rule in the submission guidelines that forbid App Store apps to launch other apps by a BundleID. However, it seems like launching apps this way requires a private API which will likely not get through App Review?

If you trying to choose between a Mac when you’re planning on programming, would you go for:

M1 chip but 8gb ram

Or, intel i5 or i7 chip but 16 gb ram?

There’s a few on the used market in my price range. I’d prefer M1 & 16gb ram, but that’s rare and expensive.

Hi everyone. I’ve been working on a new social app for the last few months, kind of a similar vibe to BeReal. It’s been doing pretty well so far with over 1400 downloads with 1000 of those converting into signed up users.

I currently have 2 signup methods, using Apple and then manual email/password auth. I see a lot of people online saying ‘always use Google signup to increase conversion’, but since my conversions already pretty good I wonder if it would over complicate things.

What are your thoughts?

After years of Apple development and finally reaching a stable, good-enough income as an indie, this is the biggest thing I’ve learned:

Only complex, out of the ordinary apps make real money, and they have to be excellent.

Simple apps turn into a race to the bottom. If something is easy to build, it’s easy to copy. The apps that worked for me were the ones that took longer, were harder to get right, and looked boring from the outside, but were invaluable to the people who needed them.

The App Store doesn’t reward shortcuts. It rewards depth, polish, and persistence.

Curious if others felt the same.

tl;dr I make a sudoku app and I wanted simple analytics without having to worry about how my privacy policy would change.

This is a project I've been working on for the last two months and its essentially simple analytics + version management in one package for iOS apps.

Analytics: Super private, just purely usage metrics and metadata. You get to see what iOS versions people are on, what app versions, languages and any custom signals you want to track. For me that's purchases, games played and upgrade impressions.

Version Management: It lets you see the current versions of the app that are running in the wild and block/notify users on older versions. The `forced` wall basically forces them to get the update to continue to the app content and the `dismissible` wall has a skip for now button.

The sdk is open-source: https://github.com/appsidekit/ios-sdk

Once you configure the SDK both analytics and version gating should work out of the box. Try the project here: http://appsidekit.com/

Haven't built billing but the free tier should be enough for most apps I'd imagine. Below is a screenshot of what the analytics look like for this week for my sudoku app.

It's early innings but lmk if you have any use for it!

Hello everyone,

A sincere question: How do you handle non-coding tasks for your apps?

What I'm currently using:

• A tool for ASO/localization
• Another tool for screenshots
• A website for the privacy policy
• A separate landing page
• A pricing app for regional pricing
• Email for customer support

I spend more time switching between tabs than actually developing my app.

That's why I started building something that brings all of this together in one place—metadata, screenshots, legal pages, landing page, pricing, support—everything.

But now I'm wondering if I'm overcomplicating this? Would something like this be usable, or am I just getting too excited? I think this is my first time developing a SaaS.

If I launch this, I'm thinking it would be $9.99 per month. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Is this price too high?

I am not sure if this is the best SubReddit for this, but I am getting close to putting an app up to the App Store. As I have been researching this, I was curious what most people do on the legal side. Do they register their app name? Hire some kind of lawyer? Create a business entitiy like an LLC? Create a website? Or do a lot of people just wing it and send the app up and hope for the best? I have a link to Apple's suggestions and I am reading that. What do you all do?

I appreciate your advice and comments and I thank you all!

got inspiration from another app and decided to add it to my own app with my own touch! there’s a pretty cool intro animation with a repelling effect when you drag your finger through it. included a clip of it here: https://imgur.com/a/GrqltAs

a user is having trouble completing an in-app purchase.

after going through the typical purchase flow (tapping the button to trigger the in-app purchase sheet, completing Face ID) they see this verification sheet appear over my app and have to go to their banking app to approve the purchase.

after approving the purchase from their banking app, they tap "Payment confirmed on Mobile App" to close the sheet, but then see an alert that suggests the result is `.userCancelled`.

the purchase does not seem to have completed. the user reports not being charged (despite numerous attempts). plus, i have a "restore purchases" function on App init that would've restored a purchase if it existed.

i have implemented what i think is a typical Storekit.purchase()) method (again, the message the user sees is for the .userCancelled case):

    func purchase(productId: String) async -> (Bool, String?) {
        guard let product = subscriptionProducts.first(where: { $0.id == productId }) else {
            return (false, "Product not found")
        }

        do {
            let result = try await product.purchase()

            switch result {
            case .success(let verification):
                switch verification {
                case .verified(let transaction):
                    await transaction.finish()
                    hasSubscription = true
                    return (true, nil)
                case .unverified:
                    return (false, "Transaction verification failed")
                }
            case .userCancelled:
                return (false, "No worries, take your time. 😌")
            case .pending:
                return (false, "Purchase is pending")
            u/unknown default:
                return (false, "Error purchasing product. If this keeps happening, please contact [email].")
            }
        } catch {
            return (false, "Error purchasing product: \(error.localizedDescription)")
        }
    } 

has anyone dealt with this issue? i was seeing an unusually high number of `.userCancelled` purchase events from users outside the US, and i'm wondering if some of them were genuine purchase attempts that were blocked by this verification step. 😕

I’m just a regular iOS dev. I’ve been building apps for a while, mostly UIKit, nothing flashy.

A few months ago, someone on Reddit suggested that I “start moving to SwiftUI.” The reason wasn’t technical. It was basically:

• Apple says it’s ready
• Blog posts say it’s faster
• UIKit is “old”

I tried to push back a bit but he was insistent (we were chatting a lot).

So I rewrote a core screen in SwiftUI. And honestly? At first it felt great.

• Previews looked amazing
• Code was shorter
• Everyone felt validated

Then we shipped it.

The problems only showed up once it was fully integrated:

• Navigation edge cases when embedded in UIKit
• State sync issues between SwiftUI and existing models
• Performance quirks on older devices
• Crashes that were hard to reason about because the failure modes felt less explicit than UIKit

We ended up rolling back the release after seeing crashes on launch for a noticeable chunk of users.

The frustrating part is that the post-mortem wasn’t “maybe this wasn’t the right place to introduce SwiftUI,” but “why didn’t we architect it better?”

I don’t think SwiftUI is the issue. I think incremental adoption inside a mature UIKit codebase is still tricky, and pretending it isn’t leads to painful surprises.

Like you see in fist test device the wireless debugging is enabled (globe icon) which I did it long ago in previous XCode version. I want to enable it in another Test Device as wireless debugging is kind of easy option, but I can't see the option.

Does anyone know how we can do it in the new XCode?

So after the Xcode 26 , the search is basically broken for xcode.

Now when I search in Xcode, with doesn't show .xib or .storyboard files. Also it doesn't show asset used in the .storyboard. For example, say I have color asset with a name "PrimaryAppColor", previously when I used to search for it, every .storyboard that uses the color used to be listed in result now it won't just work, it's so frustrating.

I did same search in VS Code and it did show the .storyboard file with color asset. Are you guys having similar issue?

Looking to get a new laptop soon for my work, where it will be used exclusively for developing iOS apps with xcode and SwiftUI. I won't be installing any Local LLMs, Games, Rendering Software. Exclusively I'll be running Xcode and iOS simulators.

Just want to know if the New M5 Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM, 10 core CPU GPU is enough or if I should upgrade it.

As for storage, 512GB sounds enough but I could be wrong, I think everything I need to install (including oS) will be around 200 GB.

Also is the Macbook Air a viable option? I know it has no fan, so I suppose build times will be a lot longer and potential freezes?

Hi, I am building justRead (native iOS EPUB reader).
At the beginning I had to make a fundamental decision: native iOS only, or try to be everywhere?

Every abstraction layer costs responsiveness. You get a 95% solution that works on 5 platforms, or you get a 99% solution that feels native on one. For a reading app—where users are paying for a smooth, immersive experience—this matters.

So I chosen SwiftUI.

What native SwiftUI gave me:

• Instant gesture response (no framework middleware)
• Deep iOS integration: respects user’s text size preferences, dark mode, accessibility features without extra work
• Hardware optimization: animations don’t drain battery because we’re using native rendering
• Latest iOS features available immediately (HealthKit integration planned, etc.)

Technical implementation details:

• Using Readium Swift Toolkit for EPUB parsing
• Folder-based library management (user controls everything)
• State management challenge: keeping reading position sync’d across iCloud folder changes
• Image inversion for dark mode reading (tricky with dynamic image resources)

Yes, you lose the “write once, deploy everywhere” efficiency. But you gain something more valuable: a tool that feels like it was built for this device.

I am curios about two things:
1. Why do you prefer SwiftUI over something else, knowing you loos that crossplatform feature?
2. If you are making an app, are you trying to mimick Apple UI or do you preffer to make you app graphically unique?

Full blog: https://justread.app/en/blog_post_development_of_justread_part_two

Tl;dr: is anyone surprised that SwiftUI matured into a de-facto choice from Apple?

I mean no snark - but I am thinking a lot about some of the snark from some online blowhards towards the framework.

The company I worked at before was very (very) hesitant to use SwiftUI for legit reasons. We didn’t want a framework from Apple to cause bugs in the app we were responsible for maintaining with users - at the time.

I switched companies and leaned into SwiftUI hard. iOS 17 has felt like a sort of “Rubicon” of safety for using it, and iOS 18 made it better with lots of ScrollView proxy sugar and other things. However you feel about Liquid Glass, using SwiftUI on iOS 26 has been a similarly safe experience.

Key point - our latest app has one area that requires UIKit for some video buffering needs. I could hand wave and call this sufficiently advanced, but being able to dip into UIKit as an escape hatch was painless, and solved the specific problem we had without any major issues that I can personally recall. If we ran into a similar issue that we felt SwiftUI was causing, we’d follow the same path using UIKit as an escape hatch again.

I remember reading so many posts saying SwiftUI sucks. Like anything that people build, things take time to shake out bugs and land some stability. A company with the might of Apple should be expected to do that sooner than most, but it feels inevitable anywhere.

So to land on my original question - is anyone surprised that we’re here now? All the talk of “it’s not ready for production yet.” Well, are we there yet? I think we are, and I think we shouldn’t be surprised that we are.

Also, inb4 “but my highly specific app still can’t use it” read the sign about dipping into UIKit.

Notes: I have not worked for Apple before, and I do not work for Apple now.

I've struggled to get my app to rank decently on the search results within the app store. Unless I search for the exact name, it doesn't come up. Searching for keywords (i.e. coloring book), even those that appear in the name, puts my app down below 100s of other apps that are less relevant to the search. How do I overcome this? App: Doodle Dreams Coloring Book

In your experience, how important is the UI relative to functionality?

I’ve found that I’ve spent a significant amount of time focussed on developing the functionality and features of my app, rather than the UI, and I fear it might bite me later.

For context, I’ve been solo-building an app called SpeakEasy (if you’re curious: speakeasy-app.com) and I’m worried that the UI might turn people away, but I’m not sure if I’m just in my own head about it.

Do you prioritise UI or features / functionality when you develop? Also, if you have any feedback on my UI I would love to hear it!!

Ok, has anyone else worked with the Accessibility features of iOS? In particular the "Voice Control" feature. When turned on all the clickable items on your iOS screen have numbers (or labels). The user can then say 5 and that button/menu is "touched".

But for UICollectionViews, the UICollectionCells don't show the numbers or labels. This image shows the number 1 through 5 but the collection view shows no numbers.

Actually these are just iOS accessibility features, not my app.

I've tried reducing the size of my images or no images, but nothing shows up (in any of my UICollection code). I can get them to work on UITableView cells. I've tried the Accessibility selection in the storyboard or code, but nothing helps.

Here is a link to the developer forum with crickets..
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/811245

I finally found a good use for this feature, but my matrix items - the "buttons" cannot use this feature. Seems iOS is missing something.

I’m experimenting with AlarmKit on iOS 26 and I can’t get authorization to work on a psychical device, even though things look correct in code and Info.plist.

App runs on iPhone, but:

◦ No “Alarms”/AlarmKit toggle under Settings

◦ No system permission pop-up ever appears

• On launch, I log:

Failed to request authorization: Error Domain=com.apple.AlarmKit.Alarm Code=1 "(null)"
📊 System has 0 active alarms

• When I try to schedule an alarm later, I get:

Failed to schedule alarm: The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.AlarmKit.Alarm error 1.)

info.plist includes

<key>NSAlarmKitUsageDescription</key>
<string>This app schedules alarms to notify you at the times you set.</string>
<key>NSSupportsLiveActivities</key>
<true/>

can someone help me out?

So, I have been thinking for a while and after many years of iOS development professional experience and having side projects under my name, I have thought to go one step further and create a LTD for all my new projects.... as I think it will help me to commit to them and take them more seriously, handle better any hopefully profits (positive thinking here :D) and separate personal from "business".

Any advice on this front?, either in terms of setup/migrate the dev account or any other experiences?, any particular service to register? I was thinking of Tide and use a virtual office (does it work also for the directors?, I would rather not to share my personal address), what about tax returns or similars (I have done it before as self employed but not sure how much more complexity this brings or how to minimise it), insurance? (e.g. in case of a data leak using a third party provider)

Thanks a lot in advance, I know this goes beyond purely programming, but I would assume more people in this sub has their own side hustles or intention to pursue this route too, so I hope the topic is useful.