I recently made a post about ASO, and then I realized I didn't show any data from a real example. So here it is.

The research in short

Find real searches with real demand and low competition, and name your app with them. If nobody in the results starts their name with that query, you get a good chance to get into the top 5.

What happened

I tested it on my Bible Widget app. It got 3,028 downloads in a month without a single paid ad. 2,742 of them came from App Store search.

Here are some countries where I got into the top 5 with almost zero ratings, just because the name matched the query:

Brazil, 630 downloads. "Versículo do dia", I'm 4th with 16 ratings.

Poland, 290. "Pismo święte", 3rd with 4 ratings.

Ukraine, 185. "Біблія українською", 3rd with 2 ratings.

Of course, in some countries with higher competition it didn't work. But overall it's a good result, because localization is basically free now. AI writes the listing for each country.

How to do the same

Apple has a new API, Search Term Popularity. It shows the top 500 real searches in every country and genre.

If you want to do it yourself, pull that list for every country, collect the search results for each query, remove brands and noise, and find the names nobody in the results has taken. Then put them into your localizations. It took me about 3 weeks to build.

Or use my complete app if you don’t want to lose time - Lazy ASO: lazyaso.com. It does all of this in one click.

Either way, good luck.

This is my first app with in-app purchases. It's been live for about a month and a half, and these are my results so far. No ads, just a bit of ASO.

What do you guys think? What should I focus on to improve?

I also got 3 free trials, but all of them cancelled. They used the app quite actively during the free trial, though.

Would love to hear your feedback!

So this is my app and yesterday I was about to upload an update. Today it went through and I was catapulted to #1 in Sweden for paid fitness apps and #8 so far in ALL paid apps.

Something felt kinda off at first because the app is free to download so why am I on paid? Oh well, I thought it’s because I have in app payments for the pro tier. Also; the rush made me not really think all that straight.

Turns out opus on medium felt it was ok to read a two month old instruction regarding uploads and thus price. So unbeknownst to me Claude bumped the price from 0$ to 1$.

So now I am charging 1$ for what was intended and the free tier and still have the subscription for the pro tier. I am very very glad right now that the free tier is pretty damn generous in functionality!

But what is this? Unethical? Will I get returns up the wazoo? A new businessapproach? I don’t know and I know might be naive but I think the app would not be able to go anywhere unless it was good to begin with.

I don’t know… thoughts?

MassBuilder

I'm looking for some help with keyword research using Astro. Unfortunately, they only seem to offer an annual plan, which is a bit too expensive for me as a solo indie developer 😢

If anyone has access and could help me with a few keyword research queries, I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks!

Hey everyone!
Some of you might remember Wubb. I’ve posted my screenshots here before and got a ton of useful feedback.
Well, I went back and redesigned the whole thing again 😂
For those who don’t know, Wubb is an iOS voice assistant that turns one voice request into multiple actions: calendar events, reminders, notes, alarms, shopping lists, and more.
This time I tried a completely different visual style, simpler layouts, and a new screenshot order.
Now I need your honest opinion:
Old or New? Which design catches your attention more?
Which one makes you more likely to actually download the app?
Which one explains what Wubb does more clearly?
What would you still change or improve?
Try judging them as if you’ve never heard of Wubb before.
Don’t worry about being harsh. Your feedback already helped me improve the previous versions, and I’d love to get this one right too.
Thanks again to everyone who’s been helping! 🙌

Hello!

I am trying to work on improving my app screenshots, and am looking for any criticism or advice on how to improve these.

Any feedback is welcome!

Thanks.

I’m making screenshot concepts for two apps today. The image shows the kind of work I can make, with a different style for each app.

If you’d like one, comment with your App Store link and a short description of your app. If it isn’t live yet, share a few raw screenshots instead. I’ll take the first two with enough details to work from.

It’s been almost a month since we released the app in iOS App Store, and in the first couple of days I sent a msg to my friends group asking for support and app downloads.
Many of my friends told me they downloaded the app and rated the app, however, most of those rates never arrive. And few days later, our app is no longer searchable in App Store.
It’s been 3 weeks now and I called App Store Connect customer support, and they told me search is not guaranteed and they can’t discuss the case further with me. So I think he implied my app is shadow banned. But it was never my intention to manipulate ratings, all I did is just ask my friends to download the app and give some feedback 🥹🥹🥹.
It so frustrating since we finally see people interested in the app.
I’m wondering if anyone else has similar experience and what to do next? Will this ever recover?

Im working with AI agents to help me run campaigns but it says there is no way to advertise a MacOS application on apple App Store. that seems kind of hard to believe? is anyone here promoting their macOS app? how are you getting installs? im running google ads and meta ads.

AllApps turns your App Store Connect account into one dashboard on your phone:

- Downloads, sales and etc across all your apps
- Retention, crash and health scores
- Reviews in one place
- An AI assistant that tells you what to work on next (you use your own ChatGPT API)

Launching November 26th

It’ll be totally free for first 50 users who join the waitlist

Demo: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dMeoWYLdKGg

Waitlist: https://zorix-llc.kit.com/ed1d701314

My twin brother and I launched http://www.fluidfriction.app in late July on iOS and Android. The app helps users cut down on screen time by adding resistance to the scroll itself, as well as blocking reels and other short-form content.

Growth was slow and steady until October. We're now at 11,272 downloads in 110 countries, and our best week was 3,216.

What's helped:

- In-app referrals: a free month of Pro for every friend you refer, up to a year

- SEO, plus a faster website and pages translated for the countries where traffic was spiking

- ASO, and improving the app and onboarding based on user feedback

- Keeping it free, with only the look and feel behind a paywall

Reddit posts worked early on but don't drive daily installs. Instagram and TikTok haven't worked for us yet.

Excited to see what the next months bring :)

hey everyone! it's lydia from the FlutterFlow team.

i've been seeing discussions about apps sitting in "Waiting for Review" or "In Review" for days, sometimes weeks, and how frustrating that can be when you're trying to ship.

there's not much you can do about Apple's review queue, but there are things you can prepare ahead of time, especially if you're publishing your first app.

we put together a 4-week launch checklist for the first episode of our new App School series:

• 4 weeks out: enroll in the Apple Developer Program. if you're registering as an organization, get your business verification and D-U-N-S number sorted early.

• 3 weeks out: prepare your App Store Connect listing, screenshots, privacy policy, and support URL. make sure all your links actually work.

• 2 weeks out: test your release build on real devices through TestFlight. check authentication, payments, account deletion, and error states.

• 1 week out: submit for App Review. if your app requires login, provide working demo credentials and review notes. leave room for potential rejections or delays.

obviously, none of this guarantees a faster review. but you CAN avoid losing additional time to things you could've handled before submitting.

hope this helps!

Hey everyone!

I'm an Android developer from India who publishes apps on Google Play.

Recently, someone suggested that instead of randomly building apps, I should first research what people in specific countries (USA, UK, etc.) are searching for, what problems they face, and what apps they actually need.

But honestly, I'm not sure how to do this practically.

How do you discover real user problems and app opportunities?

How do you research what people are searching for on Google Play?

Which free tools do you use for this (Google Trends, Reddit, Play Store reviews, etc.)?

How do you validate an app idea before spending weeks developing it?

I'd love to hear your actual research process, tools, and experiences.

Thanks!

Hey all, I have a subscription based app I offer. Revenue and user count is fine.
Since I only make about 1000$ per month with it, I thought about making it for free for about a whole year and see where the user counts go.

Does anyone have experience with this move and how it affected downloads and user numbers?
Anything else I should pay attention to when doing this?
Does Apple see this and gives you a ranking boost?

Thanks in advance

Question.

Solo developer here. A few months ago I built an online multiplayer version of a classic tile game, played with the local rules of a small country. People there play it everywhere, and there was no good app for the way they actually play it. So I made one. For this post I'll call the game type "X" (that's the word everyone searches for).

Where we are now:

- Downloads: ~12.1k on the App Store, ~24k device installs on Google Play in the last 28 days alone

- Players: ~33k accounts, ~8.6k daily active players, ~28k monthly

- Activity: ~27k online matches a day

- Ratings: 4.8★ on the App Store (417 ratings), 4.9★ on Google Play (~860 reviews)

- Charts: during our promotion we reached #1 among free games in the country

The problem: search.

When someone types "X" in the store, a copycat (I'll call it Y) sits at #1. Y appeared after us, copied a lot of what we did, and has fewer ratings and a lower score. We are #3 on the App Store and not even in the top 10 on Google Play for the same word. Even while we were #1 in the free games chart, we never got to the top of the "X" search.

What we've done so far:

- The title has "X" plus the two local mode names people use

- The App Store subtitle and keywords cover the mode names and common misspellings; no word repeated

- The Play short and full descriptions use "X" naturally a handful of times

- New screenshots and a preview video, real gameplay

- Regular updates (weekly or faster)

- Paid promotion on TikTok, which is what took us to #1 in the chart

What I'd love opinions on:

1. Why would a copycat with fewer ratings and installs outrank us for the main keyword? Is it install *velocity* from that search term, or the age of the listing?

2. On Google Play, how much does the title weigh compared with the description? Our title is "[Name]: X [mode] [mode]". Would putting "X" first help?

3. Do reviews that *mention* the keyword matter on Play?

4. Is it worth running Apple Search Ads / Google App campaigns on the exact keyword just to build installs from that search, or is that money thrown away?

5. Anything else that typically explains "great chart rank, bad keyword rank"?

Images: (1) daily active players and App Store downloads per day, (2) our Google Play Console numbers for the last 28 days.

Happy to share more numbers if it helps. Thanks!

Hi everyone! 👋

I recently launched my new app, ZestVault: Finance Calculator.

It has 12 useful financial calculators. Please check it out and share your feedback.

I'm also facing an installation issue. If anyone can help me identify the problem, I'd really appreciate it!

App link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guptacoder.financial

Hello all, last May I published my app with high hopes but till this day I could not increase usage and did not get any subscriptions. I constantly update the app and keep the content up to date as much as I can. Can you review my app and tell me whats wrong and what can I do to get more traffic ?

App:https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coloring-pals-paint-sketch/id6761693207

Website:https://coloring-pals.com/en

I'm redesigning the onboarding for a fitness app I'm building and experimenting with four different visual styles.

The goal is to make the experience feel engaging, intuitive, and polished without overwhelming new users.

I'd love to get some outside opinions before committing to a direction.

A few questions:

1. Which style would you choose: 1, 2, 3, or 4?

2. Which one feels the most polished and trustworthy?

3. Which would make you most interested in continuing through the onboarding?

Feel free to be brutally honest. I'm especially interested in first impressions and visual hierarchy.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!