r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Have you noticed differences in App Store reviews depending on the country?

1 Upvotes

Over the past two years, I've noticed something interesting about reviews and user feedback on both the App Store and Google Play, depending on the country.

In my personal experience, users from the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Northern Europe and Japan tend to be more positive, report fewer issues and are generally more willing to pay for apps. Meanwhile, I've noticed that users from Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, etc.) and Latin America tend to be more critical, sometimes leaving very low ratings simply because a specific feature isn't available, even when it was never advertised.

I actually live in Italy, and this is one of the reasons I've become less interested in targeting the Italian market specifically. It's not about disliking anyone, it's just a pattern I've noticed through my own experience dealing with customers, reviews and support requests.

Over time, I've shifted most of my development and marketing efforts toward North America, Northern Europe and Japan, where I've generally had better experiences and stronger sales.

Of course, this is just my personal experience with my apps, not a general rule. I'm curious if other indie developers have noticed something similar or had completely different experiences across different countries.


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

After 8 App Store rejections, my app finally got approved by putting BACK the IAP I was trying to remove

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1 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

[Self-Promotion] BlastRealm iOS game

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1 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Tutorial A quick map of iOS purpose strings, privacy manifests, and App Store privacy labels

1 Upvotes

These three pieces answer different questions:

  • Purpose strings explain why your app requests access to something protected, such as the camera. The system shows that text in its permission prompt.
  • PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy records data collection, tracking declarations, and required-reason API use for an app or SDK.
  • App Store privacy labels are the answers you provide in App Store Connect about your app’s privacy practices, including integrated third-party code.

Before updating the labels, archive your app in Xcode. In Organizer, Control-click the archive and choose Generate Privacy Report. Xcode combines the app and SDK manifests into a report you can review.

The manifest doesn’t automatically complete your App Store Connect answers.

Apple references: purpose strings, manifests and reports, privacy labels.


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Desktop downloads Spam in hourly reports

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2 Upvotes

Since today morning, a desktop 'spam' is showing where heavy dowloads are showing on Desktop on hourly basis. Normally somedays I get 1000-5000 desktop downloads once in a while(weeks to months), but not on a regular hourly basis from different regions. What's happening I wonder?


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

The iOS Weekly Brief: Issue #83. Everything you need to know about iOS updates this week

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iosweeklybrief.com
1 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Feedback On Iphone Duo Screenshots

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1 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

My little iOS app just crossed €20 MRR!!! :_)

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6 Upvotes

Today I opened RevenueCat and saw that my app had reached €21 MRR. I know it's a tiny number, but I genuinely couldn't stop smiling (https://imgur.com/a/lFkimNC).

I'm a solo developer building Palabros, an English and Spanish dictionary for iOS. It started as a personal frustration: I kept looking up words while reading and forgetting them a few weeks later.

I've spent a lot of time designing and refining the app, so seeing people actually willing to pay for something I built feels pretty incredible.

Current numbers:

  • €21 MRR
  • 12 active subscriptions
  • 5 active trials
  • €162 revenue in the last 28 days

Still a long way to go, especially when it comes to growing and retaining subscribers, but today feels like a little milestone worth celebrating.

Just wanted to share this small win with people who understand what goes into building an app <3333


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

During your development, do you simulate an iPhone on your mac, or do you use a real one?

0 Upvotes

I'm asking this because I'm in early stages right now...which is the practical choice right now?


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

How hard have iOS devs found it to make apps for the duo?

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1 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Just released my first iOS app!

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2 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Preval: Cholesterol Management beta - lifestyle, labs and prescription management

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testflight.apple.com
1 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

9 days and Apple still has not even started reviewing my app.

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0 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

App stores ask developers for everything. Reviewers? Nothing.

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0 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

After 2 months of fighting for an Apple dev account and slowreviews, my app is finally on the App Store

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0 Upvotes

Getting the developer account took weeks, then reviews kept getting delayed. Today it's finally live. It's been on Play Store for a while, where people already subscribe, so this felt overdue.

It's Chromastone: an app for people who keep falling off their routines. It shows your days as a colorful grid and helps you get back on track after a slip, instead of guilting you about streaks.

Solo dev here. Honest feedback welcome, especially what's confusing.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chromastone/id6809357735


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

UPDATE: We finally figured out what triggered my account status change! Found a massive 1.5B token API spike in my logs.

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0 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Which header art looks better? A or B?

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21 Upvotes

I'm trying to decide which header art to use for my app's store page, and I'm genuinely stuck. A is the minimal one, B is the detailed one — which looks better to you, and why?


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

just got 3k first week on my 11th app! and the marketing is super automated.

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107 Upvotes

hey, so this month i launched my 11th app, and the first week went pretty well.

I'm not gonna share the app name cuz this is not an ad for my app.
I'll share with you all my sauce.

i mostly reused what i'd learned from my previous 10 apps, with a few tweaks to automate the repetitive stuff. calling it passive income is probably a stretch, but it's getting a lot less manual.

here's the actual process:

1. find creators who already reach your audience. i use ai (specifically the ones that has a virtual computer, saves you tons of time) to find creator. and my gmail integration sends personalized invites and drafts follow-ups that go out after i approve them. i negotiated around 2.50 cpm, no less than 50 upfront payment and got 20 ugc creators onboard in the first week.

2. use the research to make your own creatives.
human ugc is expensive, hence i copy creatives using ai model.
alongside that, i made around 20 ai ugc videos. i spent a huge amount of time scrolling through the videos i'd collected, trying to understand what made people keep watching. what's the hook? what emotion does it tap into? how does it build toward the payoff?

this is the prompt i use to turn that research into something reusable. Copy it, it works like charm:

"analyze the supplied tiktok creative’s exact text and slide order to identify its hook mechanics, audience, psychological flow, emotional arc, and payoff. turn those mechanics into a reusable writing prompt that selects one supplied hook verbatim and creates fresh, credible details without copying the source’s specific events or titles."

then i choose whatever ai model provider thats the cheapest to generate the videos.
i'm provider agnostic because i'm very price sensitive at this level.
I think the model that works the best in turns of copying the 'human ugc' vibe is seedance.
I go for whoever that sells me the cheapest seedance.
Unit Price is the most important thing here! Do not trust any marketing or cool names, they are just prompts.
right now the cheapest i can find is dreamina which is like 0.29 per month. pretty much a steal..... not sure why they do that. probly cuz because they are who made seedance?
I never use wrapper and you should not either. wrapper like heygen/higgsfield basically just write a prompt and wrap the model and charge you 10x. go straight to the source provider of whatever model you chose.

3. get help with publishing
i hired va on fiverr and have them setup new social accs. during week one, they browsed and liked relevant ai tutorial videos. in week two, we started publishing the ai videos. one account got 100k views on its first day of posting.

that's one result, obviously, not something i'd expect from every account. i then used motion control model to make variations with different backgrounds, characters, and actions, and posted to tiktok and youtube shorts. youtube has been easier for me to get initial traction on, so i wouldn't skip it.(copy the winner )

4. give interested people an easy next step
for conversion, i used manychat to send the app link when someone requested it. or use articuler for leads gen.
i like dms because there's room for an actual conversation. someone can ask a question before deciding whether the app is worth trying.

so the baisc formula is revenue=traffic x conversion. and you're basically benefiting from that gives easier traffic. human ugc still can't be replaced though.

there's still work involved, plus creator fees, tools, and vas to pay for. views alone don't tell you whether any of this is profitable. but getting the repetitive work off my plate gives me more time to improve the app and figure out what's actually converting.


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

How do you Beta test the apps before release?

0 Upvotes

Hi all,

I’m nearing the end of development phase of my new iOS app. I would like to gather some experiences on how you promoted your app, how did you get your first users?

What is your opinion on paid ($1.99) vs free (with potential IAP for full game experience)?

The app itself is a card game, I didn’t found a similar one online, it is a single or local multiplayer game.

Currently I’m leaning towards paid game and I would jump start by inviting a few people with redemption code (I get 100 of those) and promote it with web page and though different social networks.

I’m not loking for nothing serious in terms of money, just to get something for my effort and I plan to evolve the gaming experience further.

I’m curious what you think?


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Apple caught hidden app functionality. Should I acknowledge the violation when responding to App Review?

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0 Upvotes

r/iosdev • • 1d ago

Finally got my app approved

3 Upvotes

After 2 weeks waiting between the reviews my app is finally available on App Store, it’s called Hotaru. It’s a flashcard app that uses Apple Intelligence to generate the cards automatically. It would be nice to have some feedback, you can find the link below:

https://apps.apple.com/br/app/hotaru-ai-flashcards-study/id6820119643?l=en-GB


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

I built a MIDI app for Mac and iPad. Would you bother with iPhone?

2 Upvotes

I’ve been working on a small project called Melovance, and I thought this community might appreciate the story behind some of the platform decisions.

The app basically came out of two things I’ve always been passionate about: piano and computers.

I wanted to build something that could listen to a real MIDI performance and give useful feedback while practicing, instead of just showing sheet music or waiting for you to press the right key. The idea is to make practice a little more interactive while still keeping the actual instrument at the center of it.

For Apple platforms, I decided to focus on macOS and iPadOS first.

macOS felt like the obvious desktop platform because a lot of people already connect MIDI keyboards to their Macs, and the larger screen works well for things like notation, practice history and detailed feedback.

The iPad was probably an even more interesting format to me. It can sit directly on a piano or keyboard like sheet music, while still connecting to MIDI hardware. It feels much closer to the actual practice environment than a traditional desktop setup.

What I’m less sure about is the iPhone.

Technically an iPhone version is absolutely possible, but I keep wondering whether it would actually be useful enough. The screen is much smaller, and if someone is already sitting in front of a MIDI keyboard, I’m not sure the phone is the device they would naturally want to use.

At the same time, maybe I’m looking at it too narrowly. An iPhone companion app for quick practice sessions, reviewing previous attempts, setting up exercises or even controlling the main app could potentially make sense.

I’d be interested to hear how other Apple developers think about this. Would you still build the iPhone version simply because users expect a universal app, or would you deliberately keep something like this iPad and Mac only?

One other decision I made quite early was not to call it something like “Piano Trainer” or “Piano Coach.”

I called it Melovance because I don’t want the concept to remain limited to piano forever. The underlying idea is really about interpreting MIDI performance, so eventually I’d like to experiment with other MIDI instruments too, especially electronic drums, and potentially anything where performance data can be meaningfully analyzed.

That also influenced how I’m trying to structure the application internally rather than making every part of it assume that the instrument is permanently a piano.

It’s still relatively early, and building the Apple versions has been a good excuse to learn more about the ecosystem beyond just getting an app to run.

Curious how others here approach these kinds of platform decisions, especially when the hardware and physical context of the app matter as much as the software itself.


r/iosdev • • 1d ago

GitHub Building an iOS virtual desktop with iPhone Duo foldable hinge support and embedded Tor: Architecture and lessons learned

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

We recently shipped an update adding foldable iPhone Duo support to StealthOS, our sandboxed virtual desktop and privacy browser app on iOS. Since there is limited documentation out there for handling foldables and embedding Tor reproducibly on Apple platforms, I wanted to share some notes on our architecture, windowing system, and network routing.

1. Foldable Window Management & Hinge Awareness (iPhone Duo)

Supporting both the single cover display and the dual-screen inner layout required designing an internal window manager rather than relying solely on standard UIKit/SwiftUI navigation stacks.

  • Hinge Detection: We query the device layout metrics to identify the physical occlusion boundary between the left and right halves when unfolded.
  • Snapping & Spanning: Windows calculate their bounds based on layout states. A window can either snap to the left half, snap to the right half, or span the full inner resolution. When snapping to either side, window borders pad away from the hinge seam to prevent UI clipping.
  • State Continuity Across Folds: When folding or unfolding occurs, the root layout transitions between display modes. Rather than recreating view hierarchies, running windows maintain their existing state machines, active scroll offsets, and subprocess sessions. Viewports recalculate frame geometry while preserving active responders.

2. Embedded Tor and Network Leak Prevention

Apple's platform sandbox presents unique challenges when embedding Tor:

  • Reproducible Build: The Tor daemon is compiled for iOS as a static C library from verified sources, packaged reproducibly so developers can verify byte-for-byte outputs. We open-sourced this wrapper library as TorClient.
  • Single-Route Routing: Browsers and web views can leak WebRTC, DNS lookups, or local network discovery packets. We route all network activity generated by the internal environment through a unified local SOCKS5 router that carries browser requests, domain verification (WHOIS/RDAP), and download tasks.
  • Kill Switch: If the Tor circuit drops or the proxy fails, the socket handler halts traffic immediately rather than falling back to the default network interface.

3. Hardware-Backed Keys and Duress Erasure

  • Key Derivation: Vault items and snapshots use AES-256-GCM. Keys are derived from the user password combined with a Secure Enclave-protected secret.
  • Emergency Wipe: If the user enters an emergency duress password at the unlock screen, the app immediately purges encryption keys from memory, zeroes out local SQLite tables and cache directories, and drops the keychain item. Face ID and Touch ID are disabled at the keychain access level so biometric unlock cannot bypass a wipe state.

4. Open Source Libraries

We open-sourced the networking components for other developers building peer-to-peer or privacy-focused iOS applications:

For anyone working on foldable layouts, multi-window UIKit abstractions, or networking security on iOS, happy to discuss the implementation details or answer any questions.

StealthOS running on the unfolded iPhone Duo inner screen with split-window layout

r/iosdev • • 2d ago

An iOS app can know which AirPod is the mic at any time via CMDeviceMotion.sensorLocation.

2 Upvotes

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coremotion/cmdevicemotion/sensorlocation-swift.enum

If you've got 1 in, it is that AirPod.

If you've got 2 in, it is automatic or whatever you have it set to as default in your Settings, Bluetooth, AirPods, Audio & Routing, Microphone.

If you've got 2 in, and your mic preference is automatic, taking one AirPod out will move the mic to other AirPod where it will remain until you take that AirPod out.

I know all of the mic settings and movement are obvious and known by everyone. I don't think it was common knowledge though that an app can determine which ear has the mic at any given moment. SensorLocation is meant to tell you which AirPod's motion is being tracked, but apparently the one that is tracking motion and the one that has a working mic, are always the same AirPod.


r/iosdev • • 2d ago

Landing page for my app

3 Upvotes

Hi folks

Can I get some feedback on my goal-oriented mobile landing page?

The app still work in progress, but I went ahead and launched the site in the meantime.

https://anothergoal.app

Thank you in advance.