r/appdev

A bit of context: I'm a solo iOS dev. Every meal planner I tried wanted my email before showing me a single recipe, then upsold me to $7.99/mo. I wanted to know if I could ship a working one that asked for neither.

Six months later it's on the App Store. Here's what's in it:

- 524 recipes built in (not scraped — each has macros, steps, and a linked YouTube tutorial when one exists)

- Pantry tracking that feeds an "AI Meal Ideas" view — add the 6 things you have, get 6 dinners you can actually make

- One-tap shopping list generation from the week's plan, grouped by aisle

- Local notifications 25 minutes before each meal with the recipe queued up

- No account, no tracking, runs offline. $2.99/mo Pro after a 30-day free trial. Free tier is genuinely usable on its own.

Things I'd do differently:

1. I underestimated how much work the recipe data layer was. I rewrote it three times.

2. Shipping without account creation meant rethinking sync — I ended up using iCloud private database, which I'd recommend to anyone building a "no-account" app.

3. The launch week ad budget is $20 because I ran out of money.

Happy to answer technical questions (SwiftUI, CloudKit, what shipped vs what got cut). Not here to push downloads — but if anyone wants to look, it's at mealcurate.github.io and there's a free 30-day Pro trial with annual subscription.

Critical feedback welcome. The next version is being scoped now.

It looks like frameworks like Flutter and React Native are being adopted at a much faster rate because companies want to go to market faster and save development costs early on.

Would be interested to hear if developers here still favour native apps or if the trend is more towards cross-platform solutions nowadays.

The idea is to create an app for a very specific purpose where people can get better, more personalized answers than generic AI tools like ChatGPT.

I keep seeing people build apps using AI + no-code tools now, so I wanted to ask:

• What AI tools or no-code platforms should I learn first?
• What would the roadmap look like from idea -> building -> publishing on Google Play Store?
• How do solo founders handle backend, payments, databases, etc., without coding?

And most importantly, how can I make the app genuinely useful so users prefer it over just asking ChatGPT directly?

Would love tool suggestions, learning resources, or advice from people who’ve already built something similar.

hey, lydia from the FlutterFlow team!

Eric Seidel built Flutter at Google. he's now building Shorebird and has been inside the tool that underpins most of what this community ships longer than almost anyone.

he's on stage at FFDC on may 27th in San Francisco for a session called Flutter Insights with Abel Mengistu (FlutterFlow, YC W21) and Abdallah Shaban (product at Google and co-founder of Celest (YC W24)).

three founders who built on the Flutter foundation and then went to build further are going to be sharing next steps with Flutter!

free livestream. in person at The Midway, SF. ffdc.io

— lydia, FlutterFlow team

The app is called Puplytics.

Before this project I had basically zero real coding experience. I went from not understanding app structure at all to learning React Native / Expo workflows, App Store Connect, subscriptions, AI APIs, privacy compliance, camera permissions, TestFlight builds, backend deployment, and debugging random production issues at 2am.

Honestly the hardest part wasn’t even building the app — it was getting through Apple review.

I got rejected for:
• subscription flow issues
• missing legal links
• camera permission wording
• AI consent flow compliance
• metadata problems
• purchase restore handling
• sandbox purchase behavior
• UI edge cases on iPad
…and probably more I’m forgetting lol.

The app itself is a dog wellness tracking app focused on digestive health and daily wellness tracking.

Features include:
• AI stool scan analysis
• symptom tracking
• food logging
• sleep & mood tracking
• AI wellness chat
• trend analysis
• downloadable vet reports
• multi-pet support
• reminders and history timelines

The original idea came from dealing with recurring stomach issues with my own dog and constantly forgetting what food changes or symptoms happened during vet visits.

So I basically built the app I wished existed.

The craziest part is realizing how much you can actually build now if you’re willing to learn while moving fast.

Would genuinely love feedback from other builders / vibe coders:
• UI/UX thoughts
• onboarding feedback
• feature ideas
• App Store screenshots
• monetization thoughts
• anything that feels confusing or broken

Still improving it daily. (As of right now it’s been live for about 20 minutes lol)

The app is called Puplytics on the App Store if anyone wants to roast/test it 🙏

So I built an app which helps schedule messages and check ins. It's available on playstore and apple. SincereNotes helps remind you to send out messages to the people who matter most.

Hi guys, i am currently trying to optimize conversion from onboarding conversion(best i got 3%)

i am studying onboarding and first time open patterns in apps right now, so i want to put it into practice on real products

i will take 5-10 apps and go through them as a genuine first time user then send back to u the friction points in the first mins or what made me want to keep going

drop your link in the comments + share ur onboarding → conversion rate so we all can check it

pls guys no hard paywalls i want to try the app without paying out of pocket, a free tier or trial is all i need🤝

Thank you.

Hi, I’ve created and released my first app. It’s a multi‑provider weather app, etc. etc. etc. I won’t turn this into an ad here. I’ll just leave my website with all the information for anyone interested: https://www.totalweather.org/en

However, I’m noticing a problem: I have no idea how to build a solid user base so I can clean up potential bugs, improve parts or features, or understand what should go behind a paywall and what I’m encouraged to keep freemium.

I have no idea how to do marketing. I made 3–4 random posts on TikTok and ran them as ads (€40 total over two weeks) with 50k views totals, and I saw a small spike in users that quickly dropped off. I don’t know how to manage this initial early stage. Any advice?

Good afternoon! Does anyone have recommendations for any tech companies that can build a program app for mac and windows? I work in a small mom and pop doctor office so they would need to be hippa compliant and they insist it must be a company incase anything happens they aren’t at blame. They are using microsoft access 2007 and it finally broke please let me know anyone you can recommend.

Hello les passionnés d'arcanes,
Frustré par les apps de rencontre superficielles, j'ai créé Arcanum : un système de matching basé sur les 22 arcanes majeurs.
Principe : chaque arcane reflète un archétype amoureux. Le test détermine votre arcane dominant en amour + vos compatibilités naturelles.
Quelques duos qui marchent fort :
• Impératrice + Empereur : le power couple stable
• Amoureux + Tempérance : équilibre entre passion et harmonie
• Hermite + Étoile : deux sensibles qui se comprennent sans parler
• Fou + Monde : liberté + accomplissement = explosion
Je cherche des beta testeurs + votre avis de tarologues : selon vous, quels arcanes sont faits pour s'entendre ? Lesquels sont impossibles ?