All Articles
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.
When Widgets and Live Activities Enter the Picture: Deciding on Rork Max by Operating Cost
When home screen widgets or Live Activities become a requirement, do you stay on the React Native build of Rork or move to Rork Max? Here is how to decide by years of operating cost rather than feature appeal, from the perspective of an indie developer maintaining apps long term.
Making Your Rork App's Ad ROI Visible — Mapping SKAdNetwork Conversion Values to Revenue
If you run acquisition ads for a Rork-built app but can't tell which campaign is profitable, the reason is almost always that you never mapped SKAdNetwork conversion values to revenue. Here is the 6-bit design, taken all the way to implementation.
Managing Store Metadata as Code with the App Store Connect API — Turning Manual Edits into a Monthly System
As the apps you ship with Rork pile up, the time spent hand-editing store descriptions and prices stops being negligible. This walks through managing metadata as code with the App Store Connect API and rolling it out across a dozen apps, including the authentication pitfalls.
Rork's Growth Story: From a Viral Tweet to a16z Backing and the Birth of Rork Max
Rork went from a viral tweet to $2.8M from a16z, then on to a $15M seed. From an indie developer's view, here's what that growth actually means for the apps we ship and maintain.
Don't Show Overseas Users a Hardcoded '$3.99' — Localizing Your Rork Max Paywall with StoreKit 2
Localizing the paywall in the native app Rork Max generates: never hardcoding price, letting StoreKit 2's displayPrice handle every currency and locale, computing the yearly 'savings' so it never breaks across currencies, and handling the production drift from regional pricing and exchange-rate changes.
Review Count Is Decided by When You Ask, Not the Wording — Rating Design for Rork Apps
When a Rork-built app's review count stalls, the cause is usually not the request wording but the moment you choose to ask. Here is the expo-store-review frequency limit and how to define the 'moment of delight' that earns ratings.
Validating StoreKit 2 Subscriptions Server-Side: Granting Access Without Trusting the Device
To stop 'I paid but the feature won't unlock' and 'still usable after canceling,' you need a design that does not trust the device's verdict and settles entitlements on the server. Covers StoreKit 2 signed transactions, verification with the App Store Server API, and state sync via App Store Server Notifications V2, from real indie monetization.