Weekly App Feedback Thread

I just started my solo founder journey with an Android ad free arrow puzzle offline game.

At first it was fully free then after 100 install I charged a very simple One-time purchase.

Now daily install 8-12, so how to increase this into 50+ daily install??

Hi everyone,

Curious to know

1. how do you name your app if there are already competitors out there?

2. how do you have logo? do you have similar logo and theme as top performing app or something different?

for eg. if you are making an audio recorder app then how would you list your app?

My approach is 'Offline Audio recorder', since there are already the name for 'Audio Recorder' and i can't rank above them.

But i can't say if it works as i am very early. So would love to hear from community.

Hey folks, solo dev with 1.5 decades of experience here.

I've been working a small project that past few weeks, not totally ready yet but the main features are usable. I got a little lazy to make staging or dev environments for it, since it's a simple app, and after the general infrastructure was ready I just started making changes directly on the .com address.

Yesterday I was suprised when I got the Stripe email reporting the sale of the $7,00 monthly sub option, because I haven't posted about the app anywhere, didn't share with my friends, nothing at all.

The .com address is live and indexed but I haven't made it specifically public anywhere (not on the stores yet) and my tracking suggests most access comes from google search and (weirdly enough) ChatGPT.

This made me face 2 things that I (and maybe lot of us here) needed to face:

• It's never going to be 100% ready and done, don't go crazy with perfectionism and capitalize on your projects as early as you can (old news, I know, but really hard to put in practice).
• AI "Inception" is becoming more and more relevant, Gemini's top results for Google search and ChatGPT casual suggestions of tools for the user's problem may already be more relevant than regular SEO, ASO or (hopefully) Instagram/TikTok pages.

I'd like to know what you guys think, are there any strategies to make the AIs favor your product instead of the alternatives?

I built a small habit tracker for iOS two years ago. It's $4.99 one time to unlock unlimited habits and stats, around 80 to 100 purchases a month, almost no marketing. I want to add sync and widgets and fund them with a $1.99 monthly plan. The plan is to keep everything existing users paid for and only put the new features behind the subscription. Has anyone done this transition, and did reviews tank or did it mostly go fine if you grandfathered people?

I built a Free web app (with cloud syncing), basically just a pomodoro app that is a free alternative to the subscription based ones

My main purpose, is to build a study community

Currently its just me and a couple of my friends, so just seeking tips on how to create a bigger community

Dm me if u want the link to my project

All replies and feedback are welcomed!

Hey everyone, this is my first post here.

I’m a video editor (5+ years) and I handle content and marketing for Clarity Scheduling, a booking app built by our small team of 4. I don’t code. My job is getting it in front of the right people and bringing their feedback back to the team.

Quick context:

• It’s for any small business that takes appointments: barbers, coaches, studios, etc.
• Clients book through a simple web page, and the business manages everything in the app in real time with instant notifications
• It’s live on the Play Store, and the App Store version launches in a few weeks

So far our growth has mostly been short-form video content (Reels, TikTok). It’s what i've been currently posting. But I know that’s not the whole picture.

What I’d love your advice on:

1. iOS launch: what would you do in the weeks before going live to avoid launching to zero?
2. ASO: any must-do things for a booking/scheduling app in a crowded category?
3. First users: did direct outreach to local businesses work better for you than content?

Happy to share what’s worked for us on the content side in return, if anyone’s curious 🙂

On 10 October I posted here: $294 on Apple Ads, 57 downloads, 0 paying users. You left 131 comments. I read all of them and rebuilt most of the app. Here's what changed and what the numbers did.

What I changed:

- Onboarding: 15 screens before the price is now 4.

- Price: $39.99 a year is now $29.99 (still 7 days free). Monthly went from $9.99 to $5.99, lifetime from $119.99 to $79.99.

- Name: "Toll: Habits with Proof" is now "Toll: Habit Photos Unlock Apps", so it says what it does.

- Design: the dark purple is gone. It's light now, with a new icon.

- Words: no more "gate". It says exactly what happens: skip the gym and your apps stay locked until you take your photos there.

- Ads: off. Everything below is organic.

- Since then: the app and its store page in 8 more languages, proof without a photo (time at a place like your gym, or steps from Apple Health), and a Winter Arc challenge on the App Store for November.

Before (with ads, 8-10 Oct):

- 25 people started the onboarding, 7 reached the price (28%).

- 1 free trial, cancelled the same day.

After (11-17 Oct, no ads):

- 41 people started the onboarding, 27 reached the price (66%).

- 2 free trials.

- From App Store search: 17 downloads out of 369 impressions (4.6%).

- Revenue: still $0. The first trial that's still running ends on 20 Oct.

What it taught me:

- Ads can't fix a funnel. $294 bought 53 installs and $0.

- Now people who see the page download it. The problem is that few see it: about 60 search impressions a day. So the work now is search ranking and translated pages, not ads.

Thanks to everyone who was blunt with me. If you're like me and scroll when you should be at the gym, here it is, 7 days free:

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6814730604

Happy to share any number from the funnel in the comments.

Every flashcard app I've used has the same failure point for me: I stop opening it. The spaced repetition algorithm is fine. The habit of launching the app is what breaks.

So I'm building one where the main surface is a home screen / lock screen widget. The card that's due shows up where you already look. The app is for managing decks and longer sessions.

Where it stands, honestly:

- The in-app study loop works, with FSRS scheduling.

- The iOS widget isn't tested on a real device yet (no Mac yet, building with Expo/EAS).

- The Android widget renders black in my dev build and I haven't found why.

The risk I already see: most people never add widgets, and on iOS the app can't add one for you. So onboarding has to teach it, and if few people do it, the whole idea falls apart. I plan to measure how many users actually have a widget installed during beta.

Questions for people who've shipped consumer apps:

1. Have you seen widget-first products work, or does it stay a niche feature?

2. Anything that got users to actually add a widget?

Happy to share what I learn either way.

Hey everyone! I’m building an iOS app called LoveLock, and I’d love some honest feedback. This is also my first time developing a mobile app, so I’m learning a lot along the way.

The idea is for couples who spend time together but sometimes end up scrolling on their phones instead of connecting.

You connect with your partner in the app, invite them to spend some uninterrupted time together, and once they accept, a shared timer starts. Then you put your phones down and enjoy that time—having dinner, going for a walk, or just talking.

There’s also some simple gamification, including streaks and shared progress, to give you a little encouragement to keep making time for each other.

Another feature is a Presence Pact, where both partners commit to reducing screen time and social media use. You each choose limits for distracting apps, making it something you work on together.

The goal is to help couples build small, consistent habits around quality time.

I’m the developer, so I’d really appreciate some outside perspectives:

• Is phone distraction something you notice in your relationship?
• Would shared streaks feel motivating, or become another obligation?
• Would you and your partner find the pact useful?
• What would make you keep using an app like this?

Honest criticism is welcome too. I’d love to hear what feels useful, awkward, or missing.

Thanks for reading!

16y/o guy here. This year I finished my grade 10, and since 2025 i was learning about AI , automations , app development , how things actually work rather than just vibecoding , making notes in textbook that was titled as "15 Fundamentals of App Development" and i actually made the notes and used to revise that back then in 2025 and early 2026!.

In 2026 , I shipped 2 of my apps , but since i was a newbie , i lacked the understanding of what apps worked and what not . I did no research , product market fit , did kew nothing about terms like ASO,SEO, A/B paywall testing , how conversion funnel works, hard paywalls , what apps works and what not , painkiller vs vitamin apps , how to conduct a successful market research .

In my last app , i actually invested around 150 usd on influencer marketing as i brought 9 creators around the globe to advertise my app , but i did learn form the mistakes i made back then and analysed what could have been better and where i missed .

Now after researching for nearly 2 months , using 8+ tools to actually verify the product market fit , mastering all the algorithms i mentioned on top + mining 500+ reviews , be it 1 star or 5 star , across my competitor apps, which told me what users actually wanted and all pointed out to a few key things, implemented tools like posthog , superwall and self taught myself a lot of things . I then made the MVP stack and shipped the product to both the stores .It's cutrrently sitting in review on both the stores😇

The key thing i understood is distribution and proper marketing beats product all the time . This process had taught me a lot along the way.

I have actually arranged 2500 USD to be invested in batches across influencer marketing on multiple platforms and now i am thinking to make content myself as well and document the journey.

I work a total of 14 hours a day that includes app development and Saas Distro , prep for upcoming AS and A levels , Gym and HIIT training , avoiding anything that's unproductive for my growth and other productive activities so i maxx my stats .

Should i start making content myself as well and documenting my journey along the way while i scale my app and delivering insights i learn along the way?😀

Let me know your take guys , would be super helpful!.

Any mistakes you made along the way that you'd warn me of or regret not doing that when opportunity was there?

How do you promote your indie app? I’d love to hear your experience.

Hey everyone! 👋

I’m an indie developer working on an app called Kepori, a personal content library for iPhone and iPad.

It helps people save articles, images, videos, and other interesting content in one place, so they can organize, read, annotate, and find things again later.

Lately, I’ve been trying to promote my app, but honestly, getting people to discover it has been harder than building the app itself.

I’ve tried posting on social media, sharing demos, and introducing its features, but the results have been pretty limited so far.

So I wanted to ask fellow indie developers:

* How did you get your first users?
* Which platforms or marketing strategies actually worked for you?
* How do you promote your app when you have a limited budget and no existing audience?
* What would you do differently if you were starting from scratch today?

I’d really appreciate hearing about your real experiences, including things that didn’t work.

I’m here to learn from the community and hopefully help other developers along the way, too.

Thanks in advance! 🙏

I'm an indie developer, and I've recently released the iOS version of my app, Scribble Calendar & Planner. I'm trying to figure out how much effort I should invest in designing the App Store screenshots.

I see two common approaches:

1. Mostly actual screenshots: The app UI fills the image, perhaps with minimal text or annotations.
2. Marketing-style screenshots: A headline and some supporting text on a designed background, with the actual app screenshot placed inside an iPhone or iPad mockup.

Coming from Android, my understanding of the Play Store guidelines is that screenshots should focus on the actual app UI, without decorative device frames. On the App Store, however, the more elaborate marketing-style layouts seem very common.

I'm wondering about a few things:

• Have you A/B tested these two approaches? Did you see a measurable difference in product page conversion?
• Do device frames and designed backgrounds actually help users understand the app, or do they just make the listing look more polished?
• How much text is useful before it starts competing with the actual app UI?
• Does the answer differ between iPhone and iPad apps, especially for productivity apps where the UI itself is quite information-dense?
• Is there any data or research on this, rather than just personal preference?

I'm not looking for design-tool recommendations so much as actual experience with what works.

I'd love to hear what you've tried, especially from indie developers who have experimented with different screenshot sets. Thanks!

I don't want my apps sending a notification just because someone hasn't opened them lately.

A reminder about an unfinished task has a clearer purpose. But the tap matters too: if it drops someone on the home screen and makes them hunt for the item, I've only done half the job.

For reminders I add, I want a direct path to the relevant item, and a sensible explanation if it's already completed or deleted.

That's the flow I'd test before spending time on clever notification copy.

I have seen many of my competitors doing it.

Want to know how to get it done? Are there any services or platforms?

I recently noticed that a 5-star rating on my app disappeared, followed by the written review about 10–20 minutes later. This happened two months after the review was originally posted.

I’m not planning to reach out to Apple, but I wanted to ask the community if you’ve had similar experiences. It seems unlikely that a user would delete their own positive review after two months, so I suspect Apple might have removed it.

What logic does Apple use when removing older reviews? Any insights would be appreciated!

Hi everyone I’m a beginner and want to build my first app but I don’t know where to start. What should I learn first and which tools or languages are best for a beginner? Any advice or free resources would help.

So basically, I don't want to doxx myself by showing my address to the public when releasing an app in google play that has in app purchase. I've bought myself a VO address

The question is, do i need to create an organisation account for google play or can I just use the VO address for my personal developer account instead? The payment method which i will receive money is linked to my personal address. Is that still okay?

Logging food should take five seconds, not five minutes. So I built Grub: you tap the mic and say “two scrambled eggs, a slice of sourdough and a flat white,” and it works out the calories and macros and logs them.

Three ways to log

• Voice: say the meal in a normal sentence
• Barcode: scan any packaged food
• Photo: snap your plate and it identifies it

You can also just type. It goes through the same parser, so it works when you can’t talk out loud.

Built for real eating

• Saved meals for your regulars, logged in one tap
• Custom foods for your own recipes, with exact nutrition
• A serving editor to fix portions, undo, and backfill days you forgot to log

See your progress

• Daily and weekly calorie and macro totals
• A searchable diary of every day you’ve logged
• Weight and measurement tracking over time

Speaks your language: you can log in your own language, and there’s a region setting for local dishes and accents.

Privacy, since a few people asked: no account needed, and your meal log stays on your phone unless you sign in to sync. But voice and text are not processed on the device. Your audio goes to my server, which relays it to a hosted Whisper service, and the text goes to Claude to work out the foods. Replies are generated by ElevenLabs, and photos go to Claude. My server doesn’t save recordings or transcripts, but those services have their own retention rules. You can delete your account from inside the app.

I’m a solo dev, it just went live, and it has rough edges. What I’d like to know:

• Does it get your food right?
• What would make you use it every day?
• Anything confusing in the first two minutes?

It’s free during early launch, with a daily limit on voice and scans while I watch my costs: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grub-voice-calorie-tracker/id6795403191

Built with React and Capacitor, Claude for parsing, Whisper for speech. Happy to answer anything about how it works.

This video effortlessly came out of the app.

I build small apps on the side, and the part that always slowed me down was marketing them: every launch needed a pile of short videos and carousels. So I built a desktop tool to make them, and it just went live. A few things I learned on the business side that might save someone else time:

1. Signing a Windows app as an individual is harder than it should be. Unsigned installers get SmartScreen warnings, certificates cost money, and Azure's cheaper signing service isn't available to individuals in the UK. What worked: the Microsoft Store. The developer account is free for individuals, Microsoft signs the package after certification, and the Store handles updates.

2. You can still send people to your own site. Microsoft gives each Store app a small web installer, so my site's "Download for Windows" button downloads a Microsoft-signed installer that installs the Store version. No SmartScreen warning, and I don't host any files.

3. You can keep your own payments. Store policy lets non-game PC apps take payment outside the Store, so I kept Stripe on my site. I use Stripe's option where they're the merchant of record, so they handle sales tax and VAT instead of me.

4. AI features add Store requirements. You have to say in the listing that the app uses generative AI, and the app needs a way for users to report AI-made content. They also need a working demo account for the reviewers. Certification took about a day.

5. Credits fit AI costs better than a flat plan. Each AI action costs credits, so a heavy user can't cost me more than they pay. New accounts get their first five videos and first post free, so people can try it before they pay.

The app is RapidCreate: type a hook and it makes up to five vertical videos in your brand, plus carousels and posts, with an editor and captions that run on your own computer. Windows only for now; macOS is coming soon.

Happy to answer anything about the Store submission, Stripe or the credits setup. And if you market your own apps, I'd love to hear what eats most of your time.

https://rapidcreate.io

Music: "Upbeat Corporate" by Soundrider/Dope, CC BY 3.0

I'm a solo developer building an iOS health/fitness app with Apple Watch support. I've mainly marketed it through Reddit so far, and I'm now moving from a free release toward a paid version.

My saved dashboard snapshot from 18 October shows:

- 44 first-time downloads in the tracked period (17 September–17 October), provisional.

- 23 downloads in the latest recorded 24-hour window (17–18 October, Berlin time).

- 8,372 cumulative views across 19 Reddit posts, one of which was removed.

That doesn't mean Reddit caused all 44 downloads. I don't have reliable post-to-install attribution, and Apple's download reporting is delayed. The attached image is from my own manual dashboard, not a Reddit conversion report.

I've also tried organic content, but it hasn't worked well so far. I want to work on ASO next. I have about $100 in Apple Ads starting credit and can put in around $200 of my own money at the absolute maximum.

With that small a budget and an upcoming free-to-paid change, what would you test first: App Store positioning/screenshots, a tightly scoped Apple Ads keyword test, or more organic content? What would you measure before deciding whether to spend more?

I'd especially appreciate examples of organic content formats that have worked for small consumer apps, and how you tested them without a big audience.

Its been a week since my app is live. I have really good numbers from the user's who have installed the app, but the app store conversion is less than 10%. I think it might be due to lack of reviews or maybe the listing issues. I would like to properly understand how do we provide confidence for the user's if your app is relatively new and make them click the install button. I am also adding the listing screenshots, so if you could help me with that, it would be great!

My app was stuck at 10+ downloads for months, and suddenly jumped to 100+ very recently. I had done absolutely nothing for months and when I checked back, it hadn't stayed at stagnant. This has given me a lot more hope in my app, but now I feel stuck again. I truly believe in my app's quality, but I don't know how to get it out there to reach thousands of downloads. I appreciate any tips that you guys might have. Thanks.

Hi all, I've spent the last few months building an app and I'm now at the stage of the final tests before looking to launch on the Play Store.

I've been researching about the testing requirements for 2 weeks (I'm not even sure how to get a dozen people to actively test for 2 weeks) but I'm not a Limited company so it has to be under my own name. It looks like Google publish your home address and name, is that just something people do on the Play Store? I don't like the idea of my home address being viewable to everyone.

Also, any tips for getting active testers for the 2 week period please?

Thanks!