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.

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 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.

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?

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! :)

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.

Hello, I recently pushed an update on my apps, previously approved on appstore for months, but this time some apps have gotten rejected on design spam issue.

1 of these apps was ai-generated design mostly but the rest 2 were apps designed through proper research and carefully curated feature set to stand out in the respective market.

im really confused on how to go forward on this? I heard regulations have gotten stricter to control AI - gen apps

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

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.

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 ship small iOS apps. Free, no ads, no IAP, no account. Nothing of the user's sits on a server of mine.

I did that because AI made these tools cheap to build, so charging for them, or watching people to fund them, felt like a leftover habit. The apps sync through the user's own iCloud or they don't sync. That's the whole catch. There isn't one.

Not naming them here. This is just the rule I actually ship under.

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?

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.

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!

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

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.

Je viens de publier mon application que je suis encore en train de développer mais elle est prête quand même sur l’Apple store et j’aimerais faire de la pub pour celle ci.

J’ai un budget de 500€, ou me conseillez vous de les mettre ? J’avais pensé à Apple Ads mais je ne sais si ça marche, pareil sur meta ads. Votre aide me serait très précieuse, merci d’avance si vous pouvez m’aider !

PS: Et si vous pouvez me dire quels ont été vos résultats vous être vraiment les goats !

I'm building a fitness tracker that's also a game. The idea is that it gets you fit and keeps you accountable. The reason I thought of it is because it is solving some problems for me - I want to get more fit, I want to force myself to post on social media (because I hate marketing, and I think it's mostly a fear of being seen), and I want to make a fun app!

The concept is that you are a Burpee Wrangler. A space cowboy who lives on a lonely planet chasing down burpees (for some reason - back story is perhaps a fugitive or debt to bad guys thing). You have to operate a machine to release pheremones to attract the burpees (where doing the actual exercise comes in) and then you have to drive around catching them (which is the game bit, with rewards and power ups).

The accountability part is through groups/leaderboards/social media. It will have an alarm which you can use to automatically grab a video of you waking up, and then it will record the exercise too, and stich it together (however you choose to do so). This makes it easy to post on social media. This is to solve my fear of marketing (and market the app) and also keep people accountable - you can do day 1 of x type challenges and post to social media.

If you also think this is an idea worth checking out, please drop your email in the waitlist: https://www.burpeewrangler.com/

So far, it's been a bit of a nightmare getting React Native and Godot to talk to each other, and then the computer vision for the exercise tracking.

I'd be interested in any ideas of what you think the best pricing strategy would be. I am leaning towards a hard paywall with monthly (7 day trial) / lifetime. Because I saw someone mention it in a video, so not particularly well researched.

I noticed that having an onboarding flow increases conversion.

But I’ve seen apps have 30 minute onboarding flows. I quit after 2 minutes. No one has time for that. I have way too much to do.

All my competitors have a long onboarding flow for their app. Why?

So what works for you? How long is your onboarding flow? What kind of questions do you ask? What are the best practices you see that get people to pay?

I've posted in r/TestFlight already... would love to get more eyes on this from devs who find the App Store Connect web and app flow to be lacking (particularly if you are responsible for apps across multiple accounts.

iOS/iPadOS/macOS

Hi r/appledevelopers,

I was getting tired of paying $10-$20 / month to multiple AI providers and then getting throttled, not having control over system prompts or parameters, getting locked-in, and worrying about my privacy.

I couldn't find a native iOS bring-your-own-key app that had support for Model Context Protocol, Retrieval Augmented Generation, and self-hosted models (through llama.cpp, Ollama, LM Studio, etc.), so I built my own app with these features.

Feature List

• MCP. Connect to your Google Drive, iOS Files, iOS Calendar, search engines like Tavily, Exa, Firecrawl, and remote and self-hosted MCP servers.
• RAG. Share context and documents among chats in the same folder.
• System prompts & parameter control. Tweak system prompts and generation parameters such as thinking levels, max output tokens, top P, top K, etc.
• Editing controls. Edit your and the LLM's messages, regenerate messages, make the LLM speak as you and vice versa (toggle sender), branch chats.
• Pay per token. You don't have to pay the provider $20 a month when you're only using $8 worth of tokens; pay depending on usage.
  • e.g., you can distribute the $20 that was going to OpenAI among Anthropic, Deepseek, Google, and not get locked in or throttled.
• Privacy.
  • Zero-data-retention flags requested for cloud LLM providers that allow it.
  • Lockable folders for your chats and configs.
  • API keys stored in the iOS keychain.
  • No data collected by the app. Not even analytics.
• Go local. With a self-hosted model, local MCP, and on-device RAG embedding, it is possible to have your AI workflow without connecting to the internet.
• Zero lock-in.
  • Import / export chats and configs.
  • Switch multiple providers and modalities in the same chat (e.g. Deepseek -> Nano Banana -> Claude -> GPT Image)

Feedback Needed!

As I am a solo dev, your feedback will be greatly appreciated and will help me improve my app.

TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/fq5yM3QS

It's a free offline currency converter I'm adding to my portfolio of travel-friendly apps.

More info: https://dami.loam.sk

Download: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6792260234

What I'm building: a fitness RPG mobile game

What I'm doing rn: mocking up the prototype, screen by screen.

How it's coming: so far, better than I imagined 😅

So, what are y'all up to?