◉RORK LABJP
●GPT-6.1 SOL — Added to Rork's model menu (09-29) with Low, Medium and High effort; included on Pro and Max●SONNET 5.5 — Claude Sonnet 5.5 is selectable: strong at UI design and faster than Sonnet 5 (09-28)●SONNET 4.5 — Retires on the Claude API on 11/30, 27 days left. If your app calls it, check the migration target●SDK 58 — Moves to React Native 0.88. R8 is now on by default in Android release builds, and iOS prebuild generates a SceneDelegate●OBSERVE — EAS Observe now records native crashes too (SDK 57.0.21 or later, 10/07)●NEW — My App Open Ad Only Showed When the App…●GPT-6.1 SOL — Added to Rork's model menu (09-29) with Low, Medium and High effort; included on Pro and Max●SONNET 5.5 — Claude Sonnet 5.5 is selectable: strong at UI design and faster than Sonnet 5 (09-28)●SONNET 4.5 — Retires on the Claude API on 11/30, 27 days left. If your app calls it, check the migration target●SDK 58 — Moves to React Native 0.88. R8 is now on by default in Android release builds, and iOS prebuild generates a SceneDelegate●OBSERVE — EAS Observe now records native crashes too (SDK 57.0.21 or later, 10/07)●NEW — My App Open Ad Only Showed When the App…
ARTICLES

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All (1103)◈ Getting Started (108)⬡ Dev Tools (547)◉ AI Models (126)⟐ Business (197)◇ App Dev (125)
◇ App Dev/2026-09-07Intermediate

Sending user text to an external AI: what actually goes in Play's Data safety form

Classifying user input sent to an external AI as collected, shared, or ephemeral in Play's Data safety form, plus a redaction ordering bug found by running the code.

◇ App Dev/2026-09-02Intermediate

Leave image out of eas.json and an SDK bump moves your Xcode and pnpm too

If eas.json has no image field, your builds run on the auto alias. Move one SDK alias and Xcode, Node.js, pnpm and fastlane all change together. Here is how to read the image name out of your last green build and decide whether to pin it before Xcode 27 lands.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-30Advanced

After Bumping targetSdk to 36, Which Part of Your Dependencies Should You Actually Read

I opened six real dependency AARs and counted what they contribute to my manifest. Not one declares targetSdkVersion, and twelve permissions arrive that I never wrote. Here is what to check before you submit.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-28Intermediate

Two weeks of half-finished batch runs, and every log line said success

A job scheduled twice a day was firing once, and nothing in the logs showed it. Here is the run ledger that catches executions that never happened, plus a backlog-slope check, with real command output.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-26Intermediate

What Android 16 ignores on tablets, and why app.json gives you no way out

Targeting API level 36 means screenOrientation is ignored on displays at least 600dp wide. Here is how to check your project without a tablet, why app.json cannot express a fix, and what the opt-out property actually restores.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-25Intermediate

Put Your Live Rork App on a Spare iPhone Before iOS 27 Ships

iOS 27 has shipped. Here is how to use a spare iPhone to check your live Rork app, what to look at first, which fixes you can ship from JavaScript, and how to keep the device ready for the next beta cycle.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-24Advanced

I Moved the Thumbnails Assuming the Shipped Build Would Keep Asking for the Old Path

Reorganizing image directories on the server does not reach the builds already installed on people's phones. Here is the two-way fallback that returns 200 for both the old and new paths, the ordering rule for images versus catalog, and the four checks I run through a CDN before calling a release live.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-23Intermediate

Bumping targetSdk to 36 surfaced a 16 KB warning. These are two different deadlines

The August 31 target API 36 requirement and the February 1, 2027 16 KB page size requirement are separate conditions. Here is how to inspect your AAB without installing the NDK, and why a LOAD misalignment and a zip boundary miss need completely different fixes.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-21Beginner

Apple's automated pass reads what your purpose strings are for, not whether they exist

Submit a Rork or Expo iOS build and you may get it back under Guideline 5.1.1 with a note about placeholder or otherwise insufficient purpose strings. Here is how to read a rejection that names no key, and how to rewrite the strings from app.json.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-18Advanced

The three places I had to fix before a Rork project actually targeted API level 36

My app.json said targetSdkVersion 36. The value my build actually read was 35. Here is the script that reports the effective value, and how I split my apps between raising, leaving alone, and requesting an extension.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-16Intermediate

My chart broke on day one, not at scale

A line chart that vanished for anyone with only a few days of data. The cause was a zero-height Y axis turning coordinates into NaN. Here is the measured behavior and the small normalization layer that fixed it.

◇ App Dev/2026-08-15Intermediate

TestFlight External Testing or Phased Release: Where a Solo Developer's Time Actually Pays Off

When you ship a Rork-built app to other people, you can recruit external testers or let a phased release absorb the risk. Here is how I split my limited time between the two, based on where distribution actually stalls and which three areas still deserve pre-release checks.