All Articles
Designing Apps That Keep Working When the Signal Drops — Optimistic Updates and Resolving Conflicts on Reconnect
Make the Expo apps you build with Rork keep responding even when the signal drops in a subway or elevator. We assemble optimistic updates that move the screen first, and conflict resolution that reconciles when the connection returns, in working code.
Exposing Your Rork Max App to Siri and Shortcuts with App Intents
How to add App Intents to a Swift app generated by Rork Max so Siri and Shortcuts can invoke your actions, from registering an AppShortcut to the production gotchas, with real code.
The Users You Cut Off as Churned Were Still Willing to Pay — Implementing Grace Periods That Keep Access Alive
A failed renewal is not a cancellation. If you revoke access during the grace period, you throw away recoverable revenue. Here is how to tell grace, billing retry, account hold, and real churn apart in a Rork (Expo) app, keep access during grace, and guide users back.
Running a Neon + Drizzle Backend for Your Rork App in Production — Notes on Edge Connections, Zero-Downtime Migrations, and Type-Safe Queries
After wiring Neon Serverless Postgres and Drizzle ORM into a Rork app's backend, the friction shows up in production. These are implementation notes on choosing an edge connection model, migrating without locking tables, and designing type-safe queries that don't balloon into N+1.
Adding NFC Tag Reading to a Rork Max App with Core NFC
How to add Core NFC to a Swift app generated by Rork Max and read NDEF tags, covering the entitlement and Info.plist setup through the production gotchas, with real code.
Stopping the Slow Drift of Colors and Spacing on Every Regeneration with a Single Source of Design Tokens
Every time Rork regenerates a screen, button colors and spacing shift a little. Here is a design that freezes your tokens in one place and steers generated output to always reference them.
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.
Drawing the Line Between Rork Max's Swift Output and the Expo Build
Rork Max now generates native Swift, while the standard Rork keeps producing Expo (React Native) apps. Here is how to split responsibilities between the two engines inside a single app business, viewed from real maintenance cost.
Showing Live Progress in the Dynamic Island from a Rork Max Swift App
How to add an ActivityKit Live Activity to a Swift app generated by Rork Max so progress shows in the Dynamic Island, plus the update-related pitfalls I hit in production.
Putting a Working Button in a Rork App's Widget — Implementing App Intents So a Tap Acts Without Opening the App
How to put a button in a Rork-generated Expo app's widget that changes state without launching the app. We wire App Intents and WidgetKit together through an App Group, all the way to reloadTimelines — including the two places I lost real time.
The Day a Third Reason to Hide Ads Appeared — Folding Rork App Ad-Free Logic Into One Place
Ads show only on one screen for paying users, or ads never show for free users. The usual cause is that the condition for hiding ads is scattered across the code. Here is how I fold three reasons — subscription, lifetime purchase, and a timed reward unlock — into a single state and route every ad through one hook, written as an implementation note from running six apps as an indie developer.
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.