Business
Publishing to the App Store and Google Play, fixing review rejections, and growing revenue with ads, subscriptions, and smart pricing strategy.
If You Want to Rename an App After Release, Sort What the Store Keeps From What You Redo. Before Choosing a Name, Look at a Trademark Search
Being able to save a name in App Store Connect is not the same as being allowed to use it. Here is what Apple and Google Play documentation actually says about renaming after release, a small script that finds the old name left inside your project, and the order I check things before settling on a name.
The Night Before You Submit: Which Dependencies to Check First, in Five Steps Anyone Can Follow
Upgrading every library the night before submission is how crashes that only hit old devices slip into a release. Here is the order I settled on in my own wallpaper apps: check what the stores decide first, and write down what you chose not to upgrade.
It Looks Opaque, but App Store Connect Says the Icon Has an Alpha Channel — Checking the PNG Before You Upload
ITMS-90717 (Invalid large app icon) can fire on an icon that shows no transparency at all, because an alpha channel is enough. I built six sample PNGs to tell the cases apart, and share a stdlib-only checker and a flatten step.
Google Play's Extension Ends November 1 — Count Backwards from Your Submit Day
The target API 36 extension on Google Play ends November 1. Instead of counting to the deadline itself, count back from the last day you can submit — with a small script that does the date math.
Store Sales CSVs Come in Different Shapes: Reduce Them to Four Columns, Fix the Month-End Rate, and Keep the Raw Totals
A small Python script that reduces App Store and Google Play sales CSVs to four columns (date, app, amount, currency) and totals them by month and app. It never drops unreadable rows silently, fixes one exchange rate per month, and prints raw per-currency totals so you can reconcile.
My Launch Counter Went Up by Two on Every Launch — Why New Users' Ad-Free Grace Ended Early
New users' ad-free grace ended early because two callers each advanced the launch counter. A counter that moves once per launch, tested in Node.
Before You Add Payments to Your App: Deciding What to Publish for Japan's Commercial Transactions Disclosure
Selling to users in Japan can require a disclosure page under the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions, even for individuals. Compare three ways to handle your address and phone number, and the order I decide things in.
When Pasting the Submission Log Didn't Fix It, Read From the First Error, Not the Last Line
When a Rork App Store submission fails and pasting the log back to Rork keeps returning the same failure: a 40-line script that pulls out the first error, and how to match it against the four causes Rork's docs list.
Can a Booking or Shop App Use Stripe? Apple Draws the Line at Where the Thing Gets Used
Whether a booking or shop app may take payment with Stripe or must use in-app purchase comes down to Guidelines 3.1.1 and 3.1.3. A table by what you sell, a small routing helper, and a three-line review note.
Your First Year With Rork: The Order Your Bills Actually Arrive In
Starting on Rork's free tier doesn't mean the only money moving is Rork's. I lined up the official pricing pages for Rork Pro, Apple, Google Play, EAS and Supabase to show what gets billed when in year one, and what simply stops working instead.
AdMob Balance Below the Payment Threshold for Months: Three Screens to Check Before You Worry
If AdMob earnings stay under the payment threshold (8,000 yen for yen accounts), the balance rolls over rather than disappearing. Here is what actually deserves a check: address verification, payment holds, and account deactivation, based on the Help pages.
Before You Build a Client's App in Rork, Decide Who Owns the Store Account
When you hand a Rork-built app to someone else, the first decision is which developer account publishes it. A walk through Apple's and Google's official transfer rules: what must be true before a transfer, what carries over, what disappears, plus a small script that lists the settings in your project tied to your own name.
Multiseat Purchases Are Already On: Decide Whether to Keep Them Before October 22
Multiseat purchases for subscriptions have been on by default in App Store Connect since September 16. Before Volume Purchasing starts on October 22, here is how an indie developer can decide, in four questions, whether to keep them.
A successful payment never tells you what to unlock. Routing four products through one Checkout
Tips, single articles, monthly plans and lifetime access all came back from Stripe looking identical. Here is how I moved entitlement off the amount and onto metadata, and why I now fail closed when the entitlement store goes quiet.
A review asks for a refund. Your answer changes depending on the store
On iOS you cannot refund a purchase as the developer. On Google Play you can, from Play Console, and it cannot be undone. Here is how I word each reply, and how I stopped forgetting to revoke access afterwards.
Two Balances, Not One: Reading Rork's Build Credits and Cloud Credits Apart
Rork keeps two separate balances. Here is how to tell which one a charge came from, why one prompt can cost more than one credit, why a Cloud balance that never moves may mean your AI is not running at all, and what changes once real users start spending it for you.
A Share Button Is Not a Social Media Capability. A Feed Makes 13+ Your Floor
The App Store age rating questionnaire now asks whether your app has social media capabilities, and answers become required in September 2026. Here is where Apple drew the line, why the under-13 escape hatch obliges you to read age ranges, and how that looks in an Expo app.
Your Blended eCPM Dropped and Revenue Went Up: Splitting the Change Into Country Mix and Rate
Blended eCPM is a weighted average, not a price. Here is how I split a month-over-month change into a country-mix effect and a rate effect that reconcile exactly to the total, plus what to check before you cut a low-eCPM country.
My Second App From the Same Codebase Ships With a Distinct-Value Manifest
Google Play has drawn a clearer line around low-value apps. Here is how I decide where the distinct value of a sibling app lives, and the small script I run before every submission to check that the two apps have actually diverged.
After the Google Play deadline: which dormant Android apps to raise, and which to leave at 35
Apps you have stopped updating are governed by a different bar than apps you still ship. Here is how to inventory effective targetSdk across your builds and decide which apps to raise, hold, or retire.
I Split Rork and Claude Code by Who Owns the Build Environment
How to decide between Rork and a terminal coding agent using data from your own repository instead of impressions of generated code. Includes a script that counts which layer your maintenance work lands in, and a check that catches native settings silently disappearing on regeneration.
August 31 Means Something Different Depending on Whether You Plan to Ship an Update
Two separate conditions land on Google Play's August 31 date: API 36 to submit an update, and API 35 to stay discoverable to new users. Here is how I sorted six apps, and who actually gets the extension form.
Four Countries, Not the World: Checking Which of My Six Apps the September 30 Deadline Actually Touches
Android developer verification goes live on September 30, 2026 in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. Here's how to decide from your own install data whether that date is urgent for you, and what actually blocks indie developers.
When Bumping Push to Three a Day Cut Next-Week Returns — Field Notes on Measuring Notification Frequency by D7 Retention and Opt-Out Rate
The assumption that heavier push means more returns was quietly eroding my D7 retention. These are field notes on re-measuring notification frequency by install-cohort D7 and opt-out rate, and walking from three a day back to one.
Handing Over an App — What an App Store Transfer Carries, and What You Rebuild
A practical look at App Store Connect app transfers when selling or moving an app: the eligibility criteria, what carries over (ratings, subscribers, iCloud data), what you rebuild (TestFlight, APNs, merchant IDs), and the three places users actually feel the change.
Sunsetting an App Well — Designing the Path from Update Freeze to Full Shutdown
What to do with an app whose revenue no longer covers its server bill. A three-stage decision table, a CDN-based sunset flag with TypeScript implementation, a data export path, and the practical order for winding down auto-renewable subscriptions.
Why Shipping Several Similar Apps Triggers App Store Guideline 4.3 — Differentiation for Indie Developers
Ship a few similar Rork apps and you may run into App Store review Guideline 4.3 (Spam). Here is why it happens more with AI-generated apps, how to differentiate before you submit, and how to respond if you have already been rejected — from an indie developer's point of view.
Lower Store Fees by Their Structure, Not Their Rate — Apple SBP and Google Play's June 2026 Pricing
A working breakdown of Apple's Small Business Program and Google Play's new fee model that started June 30, 2026, framed as fee design for indie developers, with code to compute your effective rate and a break-even table.
Will Your Real Name Appear on the App Store? Deciding on a Developer Identity Before You Publish
What Apple and Google actually publish about you as an indie developer — seller names, address disclosure, EU trader rules — and practical ways to limit exposure before you ship.
When Your AdMob Earnings Suddenly Get Deducted: Preventing Invalid Traffic as a Solo Developer
Invalid traffic deductions in AdMob are unsettling because the cause is rarely obvious. From the perspective of running several apps solo, here is a minimal setup that prevents the most common accidents, plus how to respond when a deduction actually happens.
Putting Your Own Control in Control Center — ControlWidget Design That Adds Launch Paths to a Rork Max App
Implementing iOS 18 ControlWidget to place custom controls in Control Center, the Lock Screen, and the Action button: working ControlWidgetButton and ControlWidgetToggle code, its value as a launch path, and how it feeds retention.
Protecting Ad eCPM in Your Rork Max App: Designing ATT Pre-Permission Priming
For iOS apps built with Rork Max, ad revenue swings heavily on your ATT opt-in rate. Here is how to design a pre-permission priming screen, implement it in SwiftUI, measure the opt-in rate, and order AdMob init correctly.
Before You Reach for Tap to Pay on iPhone in a Rork Max App — Eligibility, Choosing a Payment Provider, and a Realistic Design
Implementation notes for judging, from a business angle, whether you can put Tap to Pay — accepting in-person payments on an iPhone alone — into a Rork Max app. Covers the organization-account and entitlement requirements, why you need a payment provider (PSP), the split between ProximityReader and the PSP, and a realistic path for an indie developer, told candidly.
Holding App Store Messages Until the Right Moment
Price-increase consent, billing-issue, and win-back messages from the App Store appear right at launch by default. Here is how to take control of StoreKit 2 Messages and defer them until a moment that does not interrupt onboarding or checkout, with working Swift.
Adding App Store Promoted In-App Purchases to a Rork App
How to list purchases on your App Store product page and carry a buyer straight into your in-app purchase flow. Covers receiving deferred purchases that arrive before the app is launched or the user is signed in, with implementation for both react-native-iap and StoreKit 2.
Designing a Referral System Without a Heavy Backend
Add a referral program to your Rork (Expo) app without standing up a fleet of servers. Covers code generation, deferred deep-link attribution on first launch, idempotent reward fulfillment that never double-pays, and basic guards against self-referral and device farming, all with working code.
How far Rork Companion's free device testing goes — and when to pay the $99 Apple Developer Program
Rork Companion lets you test on a real device without a paid Apple Developer account. Here is exactly where the free path stops, the concrete triggers for paying the $99, and what to stage before your first signed build — from running six apps as an indie developer.
Don't Pay Out a Rewarded Ad on the Client's Word Alone — SSV Verification for a Rork (Expo) App on a Worker
Trusting the client-side 'reward earned' callback alone invites double-grants and spoofing. Here is how to wire AdMob server-side verification (SSV) into a Rork-generated Expo app, verify the signed callback on a Cloudflare Worker, and make payouts idempotent with transaction_id.
A Wallpaper App's Real Work Starts After Launch — Content, Retention, and Revenue Notes from Running One on Rork
A wallpaper app is decided less by its launch and more by how you tend it afterward. Building on a Rork implementation, here are field notes on scheduled publishing that keeps content fresh, onboarding that survives the first week, and a revenue setup whose per-download return doesn't thin out over time.
Designing Rork Max Iterations So You Don't Burn Through Credits
Rork Max generates native Swift for you, but regenerating on impulse drains credits astonishingly fast. Estimate how many regenerations each screen will take, separate structural prompts from polish prompts, and draw a clear line for what to hand-edit instead. From an indie developer who ships to the store, here's how to treat credits as a budget.