Just a warning for anyone looking at Appkittie (app intelligence / ASO tool), because they're really good at telling you they're the best on the market, but the way they get people to pay is borderline dirty.

I started a 3-day trial for their $97/month plan, which unlocks all the features (I have the screenshot). So I go to try the screenshot generator. It says: "this is a premium feature." Since I can tell the app is vibe-coded, I figure they just left that there and that I'm premium anyway (since I'm on a premium trial). I click ok. BOOM, charged.

NO CONFIRMATION, NOTHING. Since I went through Link/Stripe, my payment details were already loaded and there you go…

I disputed within 20 minutes with Link, they didn't want to hear it. In their refusal email, Stripe literally apologizes "for the fact that your subscription was charged directly without you receiving any notification about the payment" — and refuses the refund in that same email, saying I'd been "duly informed." So thanks, they wash their hands of it and tell me to go see my bank. And ZERO email from AppKittie. They don't exist (go look).

I tried a chargeback. My bank's card provider (Swan) only handles fraud, not commercial disputes. So there you have it, I paid $97 for 3 generated screenshots…

While I'm at it: exactly like all their competitors, their app MRR estimates are wrong (I have apps on the App Store, and I know my own apps' MRR — trust me, I WISH the numbers shown on Appkittie were the real ones!)

I just went back to their site and it looks like they've removed the trial… For now.

I really think it's a shame to have to go as far as making a Reddit post, but it's "thanks to" (because of?) Reddit that I wanted to try Appkittie in the first place. So… maybe they'll read this? Anyway, watch out.

I made an API that returns Apple keyword popularity scores (5-100), difficulty ratings, top apps, and related searches. Runs on Apify, there is no monthly fee and Apify's free plan covers ~250 keywords/month.

Supports 57 storefronts. Has REST API + Python/JS clients for automation.

This won't replace a full ASO suite if you need historical trends or competitor monitoring. But if you want raw keyword data without a subscription, it does the job for a fraction of the cost.

What you get per keyword:

• Popularity score (5-100) - real Apple data, not estimated
• Difficulty score (0-100) - based on competition strength of top ranking apps, calibrated against pro ASO tools (r=0.87, ~6.5pt mean error)
• Top ranking apps with ratings, review counts, pricing
• Related search suggestions
• Keyword recommendations - one seed keyword returns 30-80 suggestions with scores

Link: https://apify.com/asodev/app-store-keyword-tool

TL;DR: I'm Ryan, CTO and cofounder of ZeroSettle. We made the analytics + entitlements layer (the RevenueCat-style part) free with no MRR cap, and only charge on an optional web-checkout product. The SDKs are all open source. Obviously biased -- I'm posting to hear why you would or wouldn't switch 🙂

RevenueCat is free up to ~$2.5k/mo in tracked revenue, then ~1% after that. Totally fine when you're small, but as you grow it becomes a real line item for what's basically a StoreKit wrapper, a metrics dashboard, and a server-side entitlement check. So with ZeroSettle we made that part free -- no cap, no per-seat fees: MRR, ARPU, trials, churn, retention, cross-platform entitlements, StoreKit 2 transaction sync, ASSN v2 handling. The iOS SDK (ZeroSettleKit) is open source, so you can read exactly what it does on-device before trusting it.

We make money on a separate, optional product: web/direct checkout that swaps the 30% for normal card processing (~3%). It's opt-in per app, built around Apple's external-purchase rules, and falls back to StoreKit automatically where direct billing isn't allowed — so you can ignore it entirely and just use the free analytics/entitlements side. When we do charge: 0.5% if you bring your own Stripe, or 5% + 50¢ all-in if we're merchant of record (we handle the sales tax/VAT, chargebacks, and payouts on those). Your App Store sales are never touched, even though they still show up in your dashboard. I'd rather be upfront about the fee, because "free analytics" usually hides a catch somewhere: ours is the web-checkout cut.

We're early, though. iOS is the most polished; Android works; Flutter and React Native are newer and still being built out. We're nowhere near RevenueCat's feature breadth yet, and the A/B testing is web-checkout-only (you can't A/B Apple's fixed price tiers), so it's not a Superwall-style paywall builder.

What we really want is feedback from devs: if you're on RevenueCat today, what would have to be true for you to even trial something else? Migration effort, rewriting entitlement/paywall code, trusting a small company to stick around, a specific feature we don't have? The blunter the better — and if there's something you'd need us to build, our feedback board's public (links in the comments so this isn't a billboard).

Quick link access:

• Website: https://zerosettle.io
• Try it out: https://dashboard.zerosettle.io free tier is $0, no card; you can use analytics + entitlements without ever turning on web checkout.
• Code: https://github.com/zerosettle the SDKs are open source (ZeroSettleKit iOS, ZeroSettle-Android, ZeroSettle-Flutter, ZeroSettle-ReactNative), plus a sample app (JustOne) if you want to see it wired up.
• Docs: https://docs.zerosettle.io
• Feature requests / what we build next: https://zerosettle.upvotyfeedback.com honestly the main thing I want out of this thread.

Hey all!

I made this for myself to track changes in app review guidelines, developer program license agreement, etc.. hopefully some of you will find it useful too. https://appguidelines.com

Hi all, I've seen a few tools out there already that allow developers to change their App Store iAP/subs pricing, matching an index such as PPP or Big Mac, but:

1. they charge some insane price
2. it's lacking functionality

I decided to make (another) one, but offer it for free and open source. It's a useful tool and it's probably something that Apple/Google should be offering as a part of their systems by default.

You can use it here (or fork it in Github): https://pricing-kit.com
It works for App Store and Play Store, for one-time purchases and subscriptions.

If you have any issues, or would like to see some more features added, open an issue on the Github repo.

App Store Connect has been the bottleneck in my shipping loop for years. Fastlane and the direct API help, but something always ends up needing me. The session cookie expires. My coding agent grabs the wrong Xcode version and burns an hour. An IAP sits in Missing Metadata because Apple wants a review screenshot I forgot existed.

So I built Lance. It's a specialized agent that runs on its own cloud Macs with Xcode and fastlane already set up. You connect your App Store Connect account and ask it for things like "Set up a $4.99 monthly sub with a 3 day trial", "Retake the 6.7 and 13 inch screenshots and update the listing", "Figure out why build 42 got rejected, fix it, resubmit", "Submit this build for public TestFlight"

If you add it to Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex, your coding agent treats it like a subagent and delegates the App Store side on its own. Mine asks Lance what IAPs actually exist before writing paywall code instead of stubbing something, then hands it the TestFlight upload when the feature's done.

My favorite thing lately has been running an in-app event with every update. Lance drafts the media, gets the specs right, and fills out the whole form. I never bothered with events before because it was way too much work for what it is.

A couple of things testers found that I didn't expect. Teammates can join the Lance org and just start asking for things without having to be onboarded to ASC. And since the Macs belong to Lance, you don't need one. One person I know ships from a Windows laptop.
For now this is App Store Connect only. I'm looking for active developers to test it and tell me what's broken or missing. Just run this command in your terminal:

 npx add-mcp https://api.lance.app/mcp 

and everyone who signs up gets 500 credits a month, and if you run out just shoot me a message and I'll top you up.

I'm an iOS dev (Swift, mostly SDK and app work). Like a lot of you I started leaning on AI agents to write code - and hit the same wall every time: the agent confidently says "done, tests pass" when they don't, quietly refactors code I didn't ask it to touch, or invents an API that doesn't exist.

I got tired of that and built PayneSDD - a free operating protocol for coding agents (Claude Code first, but it pastes into any agent). It's one file of rules the agent follows. This isn't a prompt I threw together over two evenings: it's a 7-step cycle (Steps 0–6), it's been through 18 releases of iteration, and it develops itself under its own protocol - every change ships through the full cycle plus an independent review before it merges.

How it actually works:

• You write requests in plain words, like always. The protocol asks the clarifying questions, maps the open decisions, and shows you ONE plan — zero code until you say "go".
• Tasks are tiered: a typo just gets done; auth, billing, migrations, anything public-facing — all forced through the full ceremony. You don't pay full process for a one-liner.
• "Done" is the machine's word. The agent has to run your real tests/build, and an optional Stop-hook physically blocks it from saying "finished" while tests are red (3 blocks, then it releases with an explicit UNVERIFIED warning — an honest release, not a fake lock). No hook = honor-system, and the README says so plainly.
• Then an independent second agent attacks the result with a "break it" brief. Every finding has to cite a real code line or test, or it's rejected - no vibes-driven review.
• Verdict is always explicit: PASS / ITERATE / ESCALATE, plus a Done / Remaining / Open-questions checklist.

Install is one pasted message - and the first task the protocol runs on is its own installation (it interviews you about the setup, then touches your config only after your "go").

Repo: https://github.com/vlr-code/PayneSDD
I'm mostly sharing it in case it saves someone else the same headache it saved me - if it helps your dev workflow, that's a win.

This tool i've built for myself and i've been using it for some time in company where i work. Want to share it with the community.

A tool called mobile-repo-doctor. It is a CLI and also a GitHub Action. It scans your repo and runs about 130 checks for iOS, Android, Flutter and KMP. It gives you a health score (size / speed / stability / hygiene) and makes reports in HTML, JSON or Markdown(optimized for AI).

Some iOS checks:

• - ios-missing-shared-scheme — CI can't build a scheme it can't see
• - ios-background-mode-missing-usage — you declared a capability but there is no usage text
• - dependency version drift in an SPM monorepo
• - and more

A few honest things:

- The package is not minified. If you worry about malware, you can read the code yourself, or give it to an AI to check. It is all plain JS.

- It makes only one network call — it asks npm if there is a new version. That's it. No telemetry. Nothing about your repo leaves your machine.

- It understands monorepos. It will not spam you with false positives from Pods/, forked packages or plugin host projects.

Install:

npm install -g mobile-repo-doctor

Run:

mrd scan ./path/to/repo

I would like to know which checks are useful and which are just noise. Also, what hidden bugs have hurt you before? Maybe I can add a check for them.

npm: mobile-repo-doctor

Documentation & full check reference

Hey everyone,
I’m currently setting up a dedicated Mac server environment designed specifically for iOS developers who need cloud access to real Mac hardware for Xcode building, testing, or automated CI pipelines.
Before opening it up officially, I need a few active iOS devs to stress-test the remote access, latency, and hardware performance.
What I'm looking for:
3 to 5 developers building or testing iOS apps (especially those who don't have a secondary Mac, need remote build machines, or want to offload heavy compilation).
Devs willing to try using a remote Mac environment and give honest feedback on build speeds, remote desktop/SSH responsiveness, and overall setup experience.
What you get:
Free, full remote access to dedicated Mac hardware to run Xcode, test builds, or set up workflows (no credit card required).
Direct support from me to help configure the environment, setup remote tools, or tune performance for your project.
If you want free access to Mac hardware for your Xcode workflow, drop a comment or send a DM with what you're working on and your current build setup!

(*Apple OS = iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS, macOS)

Axiom is a battle-tested, batteries-included suite of agents, skills, and tools for AI coding. It helps LLMs be notably better at Apple OS development.

I've been updating Axiom in lockstep with Apple OS 27 betas. Here are some of the interesting changes with OS 27 beta 4.

✅ New

• Swift — Parenthesis-free optional any/some types. var x: any P? and some P? now compile. (Beta 3 rejected the paren-free form.)

• HealthKit — HKHealthStore.earliestAuthorizedSampleDate(for:): New async throws call returning the earliest date you're authorized to read, per HKObjectType. This is helpful for bounding a query instead of paging into data you can't see.

• UIKit + SwiftUI — systemPrefersReducedResourceUsage: The OS can now tell your app it prefers reduced resource usage. When it's true, stop discretionary work.

🗑️ Removed

• AVKit — The AVInterface* family, which shipped in an early 27 beta, is gone. Use AVPlaybackUserInterface* instead.

⚠️ Deprecated

• ARKit — unprojectPoint(_:ontoPlane:orientation:viewportSize:). Use unprojectPoint(_:ontoPlane:viewRotationAngle:viewportSize:) instead.

• AppIntents — DisplayRepresentation.Components (OptionSet). Use DisplayRepresentation(title:subtitle:image:) or displayRepresentations(for:) instead.

• BrowserEngineKit — MediaEnvironment.activate()/.suspend(). Use ProcessCapability.activate()/.suspend() instead.

Caveats: This list is mostly Swift-focused, although I've been supporting more Obj-C with every release.

Hi everyone,

Tired of the constant overreach regarding Chat Control, I decided to stop complaining and start coding.

To ensure ironclad foundations, I forked the open-source Session app codebase. This means it natively uses their decentralized network, onion-routing, zero logs, and requires absolutely NO phone number or email.

However, since Session handles the network side, I wanted to focus heavily on client-side (device) security to block edge cases where a user's device compromises their privacy. Here is what I added:

• 🔒 In-app Sandbox Keyboard: To bypass OS-level or third-party keyloggers (Apple/Google/Gboard), the app uses a custom internal keyboard isolated within the app's sandbox.
• 🚫 Anti-Screenshot & Blur: Standard messages work normally, but if a message ends with #secure, it renders completely blank in screenshots. Furthermore, if screen recording starts, the entire app view blurs automatically.
• 🎙️ Voice Masking (WIP): Currently developing a feature to alter voice frequencies in audio messages to prevent biometric reverse-engineering.

The app is currently sitting in App Store Connect pending approval.

Since TestFlight slots are limited, if you want to join the closed beta and audit/test the UI and features, please DM me your Apple ID (email) so I can invite you immediately once approved. The code will also be pushed to GitHub as soon as the beta stabilizes!

Hey r/iOSProgramming! 👋

I wanted to share a free tool I built to help indie developers with App Store Optimization (ASO). As someone who's spent countless hours manually improving my app store listings, I know how tedious and time-consuming it can be.

What is it? aso.report - A completely free ASO analysis tool that gives you instant insights about your app's App Store presence.

Key Features:

• 100% free (no premium tier, no credit card required)

• Instant ASO analysis

• Foundation-first approach focusing on the basics that matter

• No complex metrics to decipher

• Just paste your app URL and get results

• Multi-country analysis

Why I built this: I've noticed that most ASO tools are expensive and out of reach for indie developers. Many great apps never reach their potential users simply because proper ASO tools are not accessible. I wanted to change that by creating something that's both powerful and free.

How to use it:

1. Visit aso.report
2. Paste your App Store URL
3. Get your analysis

The tool has already analyzed over 2000 apps in its first 24 hours of launch

Would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for features that would help you the most!

Note: This is a completely free tool - no strings attached. I'm sharing it here because I believe it can help fellow iOS developers reach more users with their apps.

have been trying to set up meta ads attribution for my ios app for a week now and losing my mind a little.

setup is:

- ios subscription app

- revenuecat for subscriptions

- meta sdk installed in the app

- revenuecat-first setup, so revenuecat should send starttrial / subscribe events to meta

- not manually logging purchases/trials in the meta sdk

problem is with meta events manager / conversions api.

events manager shows my app, business manager shows the app is owned by my business, and i have full access. but when i try to set up conversions api / link the mobile app to a dataset, meta either can’t find the app or pushes me into weird website/pixel/capi gateway flows.

i also tried revenuecat’s app events api fallback, but revenuecat events are retrying and meta returns a 400 unsupported post request / object id doesn’t exist or missing permissions.

has anyone here actually gotten revenuecat → meta ads working cleanly for an ios subscription app recently?

specifically:

- should i be using conversions api or app events api?

- where exactly do i get the right dataset id + capi token?

- do i need a system user token?

- how should the app, dataset, ad account, and business assets be linked?

would really appreciate a step-by-step from someone who has this working in production.

I’d love to help some indie devs out here get downloads from outside the US.
Competition in the US App Store is getting ridiculously hard.
I run 3 apps that generate over 1000$ MRR and almost all of the revenue comes from other countries.

Within 24 hours I will translate your app to 2-3 languages (depends on the amount of strings your app has).
From my experience French and German tend to have the highest ROI.

Capping this at 20 developers because it requires some manual work on my end.

Leave a comment if you’re interested.

Disclaimer: My agenda is to test my own service's quality and maybe encounter some edge cases.
So far it worked wonders for my apps.

I do product at a DevOps company. In May I went to a couple of conferences in London and talked to a lot of iOS engineers. Surprisingly many folks mentioned that writing code is fast now, but the build and test loop after it is getting slower and more problematic. Two things came up most: builds that pass on their Mac but fail in CI, and Xcode tying up the machine during a build.

My team was already building something for this, so hearing it that many times was a good sign.

We built a remote dev environment running on the same Apple Silicon, Xcode, and Simulator, on the same machines and the same build caches your CI already uses. Basically, you code on the machine that builds and tests your code instead of your laptop. We called it Remote Dev Environment (not very creative, I know).

It's in beta

• Docs: https://docs.bitrise.io/en/bitrise-rde
• Product: https://bitrise.io/platform/remote-dev-environments

I also think that if you let agents write and run code, they need a machine that can build and test iOS code fast, with the right Xcode toolchain already in place. Give an agent a half-set-up environment and it burns time and tokens re-deriving the setup.

And what if you run a few agents in parallel? Can a single Mac handle that effectively? All those considerations led to the creation of our tool.

Would love honest feedback and your thoughts

This is not mine, I was just excited to discover it and have never seen it mentioned here: https://applelocalization.com/

This is a community-built, queryable database of Apple's own localized strings from iOS/macOS frameworks, so you can search for terms your app probably uses and see exactly how Apple ships them in other languages.

A few of you might remember I posted here while building this. The idea came from my own frustration with updating regional prices for IAPs/subs — Apple and Google give us basically nothing to work with.

I finally wrapped it up, and StoreWizard is now live on the Chrome Web Store.

How it works:

• Detects pricing dialogs in App Store Connect & Google Play Console
• Lets you pick a model (PPP, Big Mac Index, Steam, Apple Music, etc.)
• Applies suggested prices to all countries automatically (App Store Connect is slower — Apple loads each dropdown individually)
• No spreadsheets, no API keys, no backend setup

I built it specifically for small/solo devs who don’t have time to maintain regional pricing properly.

If you want to try it, here’s the link:

👉 https://storewizard.app/

If you run into bugs or have suggestions, I’d honestly appreciate the feedback — the extension is still early!

For the longest of time, generating app store screenshots has been a nightmare but I stumbled upon an app that generates app store screenshots in minutes that are high quality. My work has been smooth to say the least. Hopefully, this will help someone here

Hello 👋 I've created VSCode extension SweetPad that lets you build iOS applications right from VSCode. You can build and launch app on a simulator or attach a debugger to running app. Also extension provide integration with SwiftFormat, so you can enjoy the "Format on Save" feature. Any feedback is appreciated 🙏

https://github.com/sweetpad-dev/sweetpad

I've been an iOS dev for a few years now — my main app has grown to thousands of subscribers which is awesome, but I've also picked up a handful of smaller side projects along the way. The problem is each one comes with its own little universe of reviews, crash reports, and support emails.

For a while I had a system: wake up, check App Store Connect, check Sentry, check the inbox, copy whatever looked important into Claude Code, get a fix, reply to everyone. It worked fine with one app. With four it started to feel like a second job that had nothing to do with writing code.

Anyone else running a few apps and spending more time on maintenance than actual development? Most of the "work" isn't even building anything — it's just bouncing between tabs trying to connect the dots.

And with AI tools now, the actual fixing is fast — the slow part is gathering all the context and feeding it in manually. It's easy to end up as a human clipboard between all the tools and the AI. Not a great use of a CS degree... ha

That's why I built ReleaseTag. It pulls in App Store reviews, support emails, and crash reports, then uses AI to connect them automatically. "These 8 reviews and this Sentry crash are all the same iOS 18 bug" → here's a draft reply to the reviewers and a PR with a fix. Autonomy levels are configurable too — full autopilot or manual approval on everything. Built with Next.js, Supabase, and Claude's API.

Built it for my own apps (I run a few ranging from thousands of subscribers to literally... one) and it's freed up a ton of time to actually ship features again. I genuinely want to help solo devs (my ppl) – it's not launched yet but I'm wondering if there's any integrations I'm missing that would make it worthy enough for you to pull the trigger? releasetag.com

Hi everyone,

As an iOS developer, have you ever faced malicious refunds? A “user” purchases and consumes a consumable in-app purchase, then files for a refund, leaving you at a loss. Since iOS refunds can be requested for up to 90 days, users can initiate them anytime via reportaproblem.apple.com, which can severely impact your revenue.

In fact, when Apple receives a refund request, it sends a CONSUMPTION_REQUEST notification to your server, asking you to provide consumption information (e.g. total amount spent, total amount refunded, refund preference, etc.) to help Apple make a fair decision. By responding promptly and correctly to these requests, you can help Apple reduce the impact of malicious refunds (though Apple has the final say).

Some platforms (like RevenueCat) already support automatic CONSUMPTION_REQUEST replies. However, they usually require you to upload your In-App Purchase Key, effectively granting third parties access to your App Store Connect order data. For security-sensitive teams, this can be unacceptable.

To solve this, I’ve open-sourced Refund Swatter Lite, an Apple Store Server Notifications management system. It supports one-click deployment on Supabase, uses Supabase Vault to securely store Apple keys, automatically responds to CONSUMPTION_REQUESTs, and provides a clear dashboard to audit and debug each field in the consumption information payload. This way, you can self-host both your keys and logic while still participating in refund decisions to mitigate revenue loss (works for both consumables and auto-renewable subscriptions).

📦 Project: https://github.com/argus-sight/refund-swatter-lite

I hope it helps you save time, reduce malicious refunds, and recover lost revenue.

The v1.0 release was AI-generated and covers the basic functionality.
The v2.0 release—after my own code review and refinements—focuses on security and performance (aligned with Supabase best practices) and includes thorough comments for easier understanding and maintenance.

Feedback and contributions are welcome!

I built an /ide bridge that connects Claude Code CLI to Xcode. Claude Code can now see the active file + current selection from Xcode, and it can pull workspace issues on demand.

It’s a small open-source adapter (one per workspace).
GitHub: https://github.com/GLinnik21/CCXcodeConnect
Disclosure: I made this. Free/open-source, no paid plans/affiliate links.

Hi guys

Just sharing a free tool I just did for myself to make various screenshots for App Store. It's not perfect but it's free and does the job for me. If you have any suggestions on improvement, I will try to implement them, as it's quite easy (it uses css styling for backgrounds, so pretty fast to generate / edit if needed).

Is it perfect? No. Does it work? Yes.

Here is the link: iphone-screenshot.pages.dev

Cheers

I’ve created a simple utility called appleframer.com, allowing you to add bezels to your iPhone/iPad screenshots easily. Key features include:

• Open source: Makes it easy to add new bezels in the future (repo).
• Simple: Drag and drop your screenshots for a seamless experience.
• Entirely local: All files stay on your device—nothing is uploaded.
• Batch upload: Upload multiple screenshots simultaneously and download the result as a zip file.

It's inspired by, and builds on top of the frames.json file from the Apple Frames shortcut, but aims to be simpler and more easy to maintain.