Do you ever hide little secrets or Easter eggs in the apps you develop and publish on the App Store?

For example, maybe you hide a small, simple game inside a utility app... something like the running dinosaur game in Google Chrome.

Do you like adding little fun touches like that to your apps?

I'm currently developing a book management app, and I've secretly included a memory matching game that uses the covers of the books you've saved in the app. (And yes, I've properly explained its existence to Apple's App Review team.)

It's really just a small Easter egg meant to give users a little moment of delight if they happen to discover it.

I'm curious about how other developers feel about this kind of thing. Do you like adding small, playful elements that aren't directly related to the app's main purpose, or do you prefer to focus entirely on the app's functionality and leave anything unrelated out?

Launch it completely free, focus on getting as many users as possible, and figure out monetization later?

Or put up a hard paywall from day one and validate whether people are actually willing to pay?

Curious what worked better for those of you who’ve launched apps before.

I recently published an app with a unique name and on searching it on app store with that exact name, it showed up as #10 result. I understand there’s ASO or related stuff involved (which I haven’t looked into yet), but still App Store shows a few others apps with no resemblance to the searched keyword before the exact match.

At this point, is it useless to publish without basic ASO?

Hey folks, I'm the solo developer behind Parallask, a time blocking app for iPhone and iPad that just went live on the App Store.

Every time blocking app I tried assumes you do one thing at a time. Most days aren't like that. The oven runs while you chop, a load of laundry runs while you work, a call sits stacked on top of you taking notes. So the whole app is built around tasks overlapping instead of queuing.

You lay tasks out on a timeline instead of a list. Drag one to move it, drag its edge to resize it, and stack the ones that can run together. Start a plan and everything counts down on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, so you can check progress without unlocking the phone. Plans can also be scheduled to start themselves on the days you pick, and every run gets logged, so you can see how long things actually took instead of how long you assumed.

It's free with one plan and the built-in colors. Unlimited plans and scheduling come with the paid tier if you end up using it a lot.

apps.apple.com/us/app/parallask-timeline-planner/id6802533160

Happy to answer anything!

Here's a nice little website I made as well: https://www.parallask.com/

Last week, we made app screenshots for 3 people, so today I’m online again and will make screenshots for 3 more people (who will comment first), like the attached image.

Comment your app link, or share your raw screenshots if your app isn’t live yet, along with a short description of what your app does.

Hi there, I personally needed a tool that helped me stay focused on what I do, I did find myself getting distracted while searching for app I wanted to switch to.

So I built an application switcher/launcher, cmd tab alternative, that let me hold my most important apps for the task I had to do, as the day progresses or the tasks change, those set of apps also change, sometimes more, sometimes less.

So the main focus for me was

1. I dont want to give any permissions:

   - No "Input Monitoring".

   - No Accessibilty

2. No collisions with shortcuts of any apps I use.

3. Change/Reassign Apps on the fly.

4. I want to support Accessibility, tbh that|s the one I do struggle the most with.

That's how Zwitch was born and is now App Store. Happy to here your feedback, I know for the most its just another application switcher ^^

https://zwitch.net

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6801471231

Thanks for your time

Frank

PS: I drop some promo codes

For those of you with consumer apps already live, I’m curious what your actual usage looks like rather than just total downloads.

If you’re comfortable sharing:

• How many daily active users do you currently have?
• How long has your app been live?
• How long have you been actively marketing it?
• Roughly how many total downloads do you have?
• What marketing channel has contributed the most so far?

I’m especially interested in seeing how DAU develops over time because download numbers can make growth look better than it actually is if people install once and never come back.

Would also be interesting to know whether your growth was gradual or if there was a specific point where daily usage started increasing noticeably.

Not looking for revenue numbers, just trying to get a better sense of what realistic early-stage retention and usage looks like for other indie apps.

I published my first iOS app

Built this mostly to see if I could actually finish and ship something (for the love of the game) using Swift... and something for my ADHD brain. Turns out I could.

Clair is a productivity app with todos, sticky cards, and markdown notes. Free for now, no account, no subscription, everything stays on your device. Feels more like texting yourself reminders than using "productivity software."

Widgets, reminders, folders, export, theme customization, it's all there but out of the way until you need it. Fire and forget, basically. The app takes care of the rest.

There are better, more complex apps out there, I know. This isn't that. It's for when you just want to capture something and move on.

App Store: Download Link

if you use it and something feels missing, broken, or even annoying, i'd genuinely love to know.

There's been a lot of posts here lately about people being frustrated with long wait times. So I thought I'd share my experience.

I've been an Apple developer and submitting apps for 15 years with multiple regularly maintained apps on the App Store. Those who have been developing for a long time probably remember super long wait times of 2-4 weeks before around 2017. We even had a website which tracked average App Store review times based upon a hashtag used on twitter. Around 2017, Apple sped up the review process and it went down to under 24 hours for both new apps and updates to existing apps.

However, recently, possibly due to rise of AI slop apps, the review times have exploded again. In the last year, I've submitted 3 new apps and multiple updates to existing apps on both iOS and macOS stores.

iOS

The first 2 new apps took about a week. The 3rd and most recent one took 19 days and just got approved this morning.

For this new app: I submitted it on August 13th, it waited for review for 2 weeks. Then it went in review and was rejected for an incorrect reason. The app was a game and used Game Center for leaderboards. Reviewer said I need to seek consent or disclose this in my privacy policy. I responded back saying my privacy policy already disclosed this and I also filed an appeal. It waited for 5 days again. This morning, it went in review again and was approved! I didn't have to change anything. I just copy pasted portions from my privacy policy in my reply to the reviewer and that satisfied them. So, overall, it took 19 days for this new app.

Meanwhile updates to existing apps are still very fast. Sometimes they get approved in 2-4 hours. Other times in 1-2 days.

macOS

On macOS, it's still very fast. Both new apps and updates are getting approved very fast. One of the new iOS apps I submitted also had a macOS companion app built using Catalyst. While the iOS one was waiting for a week, the macOS one was approved in under 24 hours.

All updates (except 1) to macOS apps get approved in 2-4 hours for me. Only one exception was an update which went in review in 2 hours but then just sat in that "In Review" status for 3 days before getting approved too.

Hope this answers people's questions. Let me know if anyone has questions.

About four years ago, my two youngest children—then around 1 and 4—were terribly sick over the course of several days.

I was exhausted and running on very little sleep, trying to keep track of everything: their symptoms, how high their fevers had been, how long they’d lasted, when I’d given medication, and how much.

At around 2:30am one morning, lying awake and feeling completely overwhelmed, I thought:

“There must be a better way to manage family health.”

Then I had an idea.

Despite desperately needing sleep, I got out of bed and spent the next few hours sketching out what that idea could become.

There was just one problem: I couldn’t code.

I didn’t have the money to hire someone, and AI coding assistants weren’t around yet. So I did the only thing I could; I taught myself Swift and SwiftUI and started building it myself.

Four years later, that idea is finally launching.

Meet WellBee: Family Health Diary.

A family health diary designed by a parent, for parents—helping you keep track of the health information that matters, all in one place.

And the core functionality is completely free to use.
If you’ve ever found yourself trying to remember a fever, symptom, medication, appointment or diagnosis when you’re exhausted and stressed, WellBee was built for you.
Available on the App Store today.

Four years. One very sleepless night. And a lot of Swift code later.

WellBee is finally here.

I’m considering adding some basic privacy-focused analytics and minimising the impact on my Apple privacy “nutrition label”.

I’m wondering if I need to have the analytics off by default or if I’m allowed to activate it silently for everyone with an option to disable it in settings.

Do users need to opt in to analytics data during onboarding? I feel like if it is off by default I won’t get any helpful information.

For context, I’m considering telemetry-deck. Any advice welcome.

I’m working on a new feature inside my step-tracker and workout app that lets you set a workout goal.

I have now added a granular option to the goal builder workflow that lets users say either: “they want to work out 6 days out of the week” or “6 times in a week”.

The distinction is subtle but for example for me, I want to try and do some activity 6/7 days a week, but if very active on Mondays and tuesdays, wouldn’t want my goal to be achieved right away.

Do you think this visual displays that well?

App is Step Step.

Hi! I’d love some feedback on my app screenshots. Do they look too basic? I see a lot of developers doing really creative and visually interesting things with their App Store screenshots, while I was intentionally going for a more minimalist vibe.

Would love to hear what you think. Thank you! :)

I got tired of podcast apps with bad UX, so I built and shipped the app I always wanted for myself. Designed entirely with myself as the user in mind, from someone who's spent ten years doing software engineering and product design. I'd love your feedback:

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/invader-podcast-app/id6781320719

https://invader.gg/

I was surprised by the initial reception and the initial burst of subscriptions. Really blew my mind. I've been using this app daily for the last couple of months, and I'm so excited that other people are using it now too.

It took me almost 8 months and 15 Apple Support tickets to prove who I am for the Apple Developer Program

I'm a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I live legally in Croatia.

I have Croatian residency, a Croatian bank account and a registered business in Croatia.

What I don't have is a Croatian national ID or Croatian passport, because I'm obviously not a Croatian citizen.

That distinction somehow turned into an almost 8 month Apple Developer enrollment saga.

I was trying to enroll so I could publish an iOS app I had already finished.

Apple kept asking me for Croatian identification.

I explained that I'm a Bosnian citizen legally living and operating a business in Croatia and provided the Croatian residence document issued to me.

Rejected.

I opened a support ticket and explained it again.

Same answer.

Another ticket.

Same thing.

By the time I reached ticket 14, I was basically going in circles.

The strange part was that the app itself was completely ready.

Eventually a friend opened a Developer account and we submitted the app through his account.

Apple reviewed it and approved it without any problem.

So the app wasn't the issue.

My identity was.

Then came ticket number 15.

This time I basically begged them to let me speak to an actual person who would read the whole situation instead of sending another version of the same response.

And finally, someone did.

They understood that I am not claiming to be a Croatian citizen. I am a Bosnian citizen with legal residence and a registered business in Croatia.

Suddenly, the problem that had lasted almost 8 months could actually be solved.

I now finally have my own Developer account and can be myself again instead of publishing through someone else's account.

Has anyone else here had an Apple Developer identity or enrollment issue that took an absurd number of support cases before it reached the right person?

I'm especially curious whether this happens often to people who live and operate businesses in a country where they are not citizens.

I got the email earlier today, wooho!

It’s just a little reaction game, but I have learned alot in the prosess. I already have another app in review, and one more in development.

You can check out the game, ReaktIQ here

Here’s a small, native macOS menu bar app for tracking remaining allowances and reset timers across different AI coding tools.

If you use multiple assistants throughout the day, it's easy to lose track of when 5-hour sessions or weekly caps reset. This sits in your menu bar and shows the remaining percentage and time until reset.

GitHub: https://github.com/vlondon/AgentUsage

PRs are welcome!

I see alot of people share app links on reddit but they include no utm or tracking code so that it will show up in ASC metrics and you can know which source your download is coming from.

Instead of just sharing app store link, create a campaign link in the analytics section of App Store Connect. This way you know exactly where everything is coming from.

Here's an example link of what's generated for one of my apps: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6768811970?pt=118007552&ct=FOUNDER_W36&mt=8

Now everyone who downloads I will know exactly where the download is coming from and know where I should put most of my efforts.

Hi guys, please review and provide honest feedback, what can I or should do batter??

Solo founder from Germany here, building a local marketplace app with two sides: everyday help (post a small job like moving boxes or garden work, neighbors apply and get paid) and rentals (borrow and lend stuff like drills, tents or projectors instead of buying). Payments, deposits and disputes are all handled by the platform. Launch city is Karlsruhe, a German university town. The numbers that keep me up at night: roughly 20,000 impressions across all channels (Meta ads, organic social, flyers, app store impressions from 2 months of ASO work, and Google search traffic from SEO), 35 registered users, and exactly zero listings from people I do not personally know. Every job and every rental item on the platform right now comes from friends and family. People click, land on the site, and most bounce within seconds. The ones who register stop right before posting anything. After reading the broken-paywall post here I double checked my own funnel for technical blockers. Registration, job posting and listing creation all work fine when I test them. So either everything is fine and marketplaces are just this brutal at the start, or I am blind to something. The iOS and Android apps are live but only in the German app stores. Easiest way to get a feel for it from anywhere: the browser version at beezybee-app.de (English included, though the audience is German). Posting is geo-locked to my launch region, but you can walk the entire flow up to the last step. I am mainly here for the discussion though, not for test users: the answers I need are about the psychology, not the pixels. Honest questions: Where would YOU bounce? Is the sign-up asking too much too early? What would a marketplace need to show you before you trust it with your stuff or hire a stranger from it? Fresh eyes welcome, roast away.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to look at it or share some thoughts. I know I’m basically asking strangers on the internet for free feedback, so I genuinely appreciate every honest opinion.

I am not a developer. I do SEO for a living. This month I shipped my first iOS app (a health and fitness app, built with AI assistance and React Native), and the App Store review process taught me more than any tutorial did. Sharing the specifics because most of them surprised me, and this sub seems like the place where they're useful. Disclosure up front: this is about my own app, but I'm deliberately not naming or linking it, this post is about the review process.

Three submissions to get approved. What each one taught me:

Rejection 1, guideline 3.1.2: if your description mentions a subscription, the metadata needs a link to the terms of use or EULA. Purely metadata, fixed in an hour, still costs you a full review cycle.

Rejection 2 was three findings at once, and each one is educational:

5.1.1(iv): my onboarding had a screen before the HealthKit permission dialog that sold the benefits of granting access, with a skip option. Apple called this priming the user. What passed: one neutral screen stating what is read and why, a plain Continue button, no skip, then the system dialog. The line between "explaining a permission" and "manipulating toward Allow" is real and they enforce it.

1.4.1: a health app that makes claims (in my case, that HRV reflects recovery) needs citations to actual research, reachable inside the app. I added a Sources screen with peer reviewed references and had to soften every claim I couldn't back. Health apps get read much more strictly than I expected.

2.1: the reviewer needs a demo account that reaches your paywall. Mine still had an active subscription attached, so the purchase flow couldn't be reviewed. The account state is part of your submission.

Other ecosystem things nobody warned me about:

The age rating questionnaire on the newer iOS versions produced a 9+ rating for a wellness app purely from answering yes to health topics, while older iOS shows 4+ for the same app.

If you sell subscriptions to EU users, App Store Connect will ask you to declare trader status under the DSA, with verification. Budget time for it.

A deployment target below Apple's current floor earns you an ITMS warning email with a deadline even after approval.

Happy to answer anything about going through review as a non-developer. The short version of the whole experience: App Review reads like an adversary until you realize every rejection made the app better.

Hey everyone! 👋

Introducing Silkwave Video(I am the developer), a YouTube transcriber for Mac with speaker identification, AI chat and summaries, and a built-in video player.

https://www.silkwave.ai/silkwave-video

Features

• Paste a YouTube link. Downloads and transcribes automatically.
• On-device transcription in 10 languages. Apple's local speech models, fully offline, nothing uploaded.
• Speaker identification. Panels and podcasts read like a script, processed locally.
• AI chat and summaries. Key topics and takeaways through Apple Intelligence's ChatGPT extension and Apple Shortcuts, no API key needed.
• Ask follow-up questions about any video, with history saved per video.
• Full-text search across everything you've imported.
• Synced playback and dark theme.
• Free. No subscription, no account. Requires macOS 26+, Apple Silicon.

Disclosure: the app is free and will stay free. There is a closable banner advertising my other app, Silkwave Voice.