I am playing around with simple app development with help from Claude (I don't know how to code myself) and want to understand if I expose my Macbook to any possible risk from corruption or prompt injection. Conceptually speaking, is there any way how the Mac could become corrupted simply by what would be written in the code in Xcode (eg through Claude accidentally prompt injecting any malicious code and me copying it)?
After a few hours of coding, TapAnimals is about to go live on the App Store.
The concept is embarrassingly simple: tap an animal card, hear the sound and name. But the journey to ship taught me a ton.
Technical decisions worth sharing:
Audio: I went with AVAudioPlayer with all sounds bundled in the app rather than streaming. Adds ~8MB to the bundle but means zero latency and zero network dependency — critical when a 1-year-old is waiting for the elephant sound.
SwiftUI animations: Used scaleEffect + spring() for the tap feedback. Toddlers love the bounce. This single interaction detail got the best reaction during testing (my kid).
No backend: The app makes zero network requests. No analytics SDK, no crash reporter, no feature flags. Surprisingly liberating. The privacy policy is one paragraph.
App Store review: Taking about 24 hours. The iPad screenshot requirement caught me — you need 2064×2752 for 13" iPad even if your app is iPhone-first.
Biggest lesson: Shipping beats perfecting. Version 1 doesn't have half the features I planned. But it's in the store and real kids are tapping elephants.
App Store: [link when live]
Repo/stack: SwiftUI, AVFoundation, no third-party dependencies.
What would you add to v2?
I have an app targeting global markets — for long Russia has been one of my top markets for downloads, yet the paid conversion rate is very low(<1%). I didn’t take it seriously until recently a Russian user reached out asking if they could pay without an Apple ID. I started to think that maybe they have common issue paying through Apple these days🤔.
I asked AI and it says it might be true due to US sanctions, but I still don’t have a clear picture. Does anyone know more about this? And if it’s true how do you cope with it?
There’s been some discussion recently about App Store reviews because of an article on 9to5Mac. I’m trying to understand the latest rules governing review requests.
Apple has a “RequestReviewAction” API that shows a standard review popup window (no more than 3 times per year) so the user can rate the app without leaving it.
I’ve seen some apps use a “gated” review request where they first ask if the user loves the app. If the user answers “yes”, they open the review popup. If they say “no”, they take them to a feedback form.
As I understand it, gating RequestReviewAction is against the rules. App Review Guidelines 5.6.1 says:
>Use the provided API to prompt users to review your app; this functionality allows customers to provide an App Store rating and review without the inconvenience of leaving your app, and we will disallow custom review prompts.
I have a question about the phrase "we will disallow custom review prompts". Does that mean custom review prompts (i.e. gating) are only prohibited when using that specific API? Or is it saying that we should ONLY use RequestReviewAction to request reviews?
Many apps have a “Review this app” button in their Settings view that opens the review page in the App Store. Does that violate 5.6.1 since it’s a “custom review prompt”?
What if the “Review this app” button in the Settings view is gated (it only opens the review page on the App Store if the user indicates that they like the app)? Is that against the rules?
I've been having trouble with search results but I think I determined the problem.
My app's name is "att app: Nearby File Sharing"
When I search as "att app" with space in the middle, my app doesnt show up. But it shows up when I write "attapp"
Is it because of the word "app" in it? Should I rebrand with no space or is there any other solution to this?
I am currently researching on SwiftData and storing records in public database. By default SwiftData does not support public or shared database, only private. The way I am handling is by using CKContainer and configuring it to use public database. I convert SwiftData models to CKRecord and store them using the CloudKit API.
This requires CKSubscriptions, NotificationCenter etc and I was able to make it work but it required a lot of code and since you cannot use @.Query macro with public database, the process of refreshing the user interface was manual call to the functions.
Anyone has used public database with SwiftData using same or different techniques?
PS: Here is the code:
https://gist.github.com/azamsharpschool/c04663d33d42a88165d11c3b29ad546b
PS: This is for my book research and not for an app.
Well I was today’s years old when I found out that to be in the Apple’s small business program you actually have to apply to it manually. I thought Apple inculeded people who make less money than 1 million dollars but actually they don’t. You have to to their website and enroll to the program so it cuts Apple’s fee from 30% to 15%. If you still didnt apply I suggest go and do it. It’s weird Apple says nothing about this until you actually hear it from somewhere or someone.
Hello everyone,
I'm currently testing iCloud/CloudKit performance for my app using NSPersistentCloudKitContainer. I am using a single Apple ID throughout the entire testing process.
I've noticed a weird observation where I seem to have three distinct datasets. I was expecting there to be only two (Development and Production), so the third one is throwing me off.
Here is what I am seeing:
com.apple.coredata.cloudkit.zone. I had to add the recordName index to browse this data).(Note: I can't browse the iCloud console for Production right now because it lacks the recordName index, and I don't want to modify Production at this moment).
My questions:
Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
I believe the CloudKit console has an issue when displaying a large number of rows (around 1,677).
If I don't perform any filtering and make sure I am on page one (by scrolling to the bottom and ensuring there is only a 'next' button and no 'previous' button), sorting by 'Created' only shows records up to the year 2024.
However, if I apply a text filter to search for the latest record, my 2026 records appear correctly.
I have attached a screenshot for your reference.
That's mean, iCloud Console (Development) is showing a truncated version of Data Set C.
How do all youse mock up home screens for your store screenshots, specifically generic icons so I’m not getting banned for featuring some other app - and even more specifically for doing videos. I know I could manually fake a static screenshot with a bit of time but I need to record videos which makes it a massive pain.
Have you ever done this? What am I missing? Help! Also thanks.
Was browsing the App Store last month and stumbled across the productivity/finance category. Got me thinking, especially having had my bathroom renovated last year. Contractors are on their phone for everything, yet when it's time to hand a client an estimate or invoice on the spot, most of them are fumbling with notes or promising to "email it later."
So I set myself a challenge: idea to App Store submission in 24 hours.
Built it. Submitted it. Done.
Invoice Maker for Contractor, create a professional invoice on your phone, send it as a PDF on the spot, track who's paid. Built for tradespeople who bill from the job site.
Giving it away free for the next 4 days to celebrate shipping and get first real feedback.
→ https://apps.apple.com/us/app/invoice-maker-for-contractor/id6758909085
To get it free, during onboarding select the lifetime option, which is set to $0 for the next 4 days.
I've been doing quite a lot of watch development lately, really getting into fitness, working on a Rowing app mainly to keep me motivated for both iOS and working out, and most importantly avoid paying a subscription for existing apps.
My gripe with watch dev was that you can't use NSLogger on a watch target due to deps. I dislike using xcode console, specially when I am running in two targets is rather inconsistent for me. So, I built a small library for my purpose I use WatchConnectivityManager as a transport, iOS companion app receives logs in a sink and publishes to NSLogger. Simple, but useful.
I have a bool setting on my iOS app which turns transport on and off for development. Sharing here, open to feedback, thoughts.
I made PulseKit to make App Store Connect easier to check at a glance. It shows downloads, proceeds, and conversion rate as widgets on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It also supports Supabase, Cloudflare, and DigitalOcean.
Tech Stack
Xcode, Swift, WidgetKit, Figma, Claude Code, Codex
Development Challenge
The hardest part was making the widgets feel useful without becoming noisy. I wanted the data to be readable in a split second, so I spent most of the time on layout, hierarchy, and making refresh behavior feel reliable.
AI Disclosure
AI-assisted. I used Claude Code and Codex to help move faster, but the app and design decisions were made by me.
Free to use: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/pulsekit/id6748132958
Do you feel any kind of resentment toward people who release their apps 100% free (no ads, not freemium, completely free)? What I mean by that is: do you see what they do more as a 'public service' or do you think it ruins the market? I've been wondering about this especially since the rise of vibe coding, where there aren't really high stakes for the people who can create apps.
EDIT: since people don't understand: I'm pro free apps. I'm not even a dev...
I've been running search ads for for a while. It's going pretty good and profitable. I was wondering why it's not so much hype the new developer to promote their app why they're not using the search ads? I'm wondering how many people are in here running Apple Search Ads for their own apps?
Hello everyone!
Getting close to launching an app and putting a privacy policy and terms of use together. This is mostly for solo devs or very small teams, but did you get any legal consultation before, or even after release?
I know there are some generic enough ones I could find, and I’m sure I could have an AI agent put something together, but seeing as this is a social app where users can interact with each other, I would rather be safe than sorry.
Would love any advice on how you have handled this!
Has anyone used RevenueCat then migrated to your own implementation? Curious to hear what the migration steps you too were - order of operations, gotchas, etc.
(obviously wish we had gone storekit originally, but now considering the migration effort)
Edit: just gonna emphasise the "migration" part of this question. We're already sold on using storekit, so no convincing needed there. Generally know the steps, but curious to hear what people who have been through it experienced
So I made a flutter app on android studio. It works great on my android and currently it is just a personal app with no goal to put it on the app store. My wife wants to get the same app on her iPhone. Initially I heard i could rent a mac online to use xcode to just compile and sign it, or just get a used mac. Then I was under the impression I could use a free apple account to put the app only on her phone. But now that im doing more research im seeing I have to renew the license potentially.
Again I only care about getting it onto her phone alone. I dont need advice on getting the mac, only on whether I can use a free apple account to add the app to her phone alone. Or if I'll need to pay the 99 for apple developer. And if I need to update signiture on it if I dont plan on updating the app.
Hello,
I’m a front-end developer and I see many SaaS developers offering their desktop apps on both Windows and macOS.
What is the best framework today for developing cross-platform desktop apps?
I’m mainly considering things like:
- Performance
- Good macOS support
- Modern UI
- Easy development workflow
I don’t really want to use SwiftUI because temperatures are very high in my city, so I prefer developing on a normal Windows desktop PC and only using a MacBook when necessary (notarization, signing, testing, etc.).
What would be the best option for my situation?
I already have a front-end background with React/Tailwind/JavaScript.
Thanks.
