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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stop Burning Your One Push-Permission Shot on App Launch — Pre-Prompt Priming for Rork Apps
If your Rork (Expo) app fires the OS push-permission dialog at launch, every 'Don't Allow' tap closes that channel forever — iOS won't let you ask again. Here's how a self-built pre-permission screen lifts your opt-in rate, with the Expo code to do it.
Actually Delivering 'It Updates Without Opening' in Expo — A Realistic Background Task Design
Building 'content refreshes every morning' into a Rork-generated Expo app runs into iOS background execution being far less dutiful than you expect. Here is a minimal expo-background-task setup plus a design that doesn't break when the task never runs.
Calling Apple Foundation Models from a Rork (Expo) App: Bridging On-Device AI Through a Native Module
Rork generates Expo (React Native) apps, but Apple Foundation Models ships as a Swift framework you can't touch from JavaScript. Here's how to write an Expo Modules API bridge, gate it by availability, and fall back to the cloud on unsupported devices.
Building Rork Subscriptions Around RevenueCat Entitlements — Access Checks, Offering-Driven Paywalls, and Restore
Implementation notes for adding subscriptions to a Rork (Expo) app with RevenueCat. Make Entitlements the single source of truth for access, drive the paywall from Offerings so you can change prices remotely, wire up restore and the customer-info listener, and avoid the sandbox traps — all with working code.
Updating Live Activities Remotely: Putting Live Lock Screen Info on a Rork App
A practical design for updating Live Activities remotely through APNs so the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island stay current even when your app is closed. Covers push-to-start vs update tokens, the content-state payload, stale-date and the update budget, and bridging from Expo, with working code and the issues I hit in production.
When Your Rork App Gets ITMS-91053 — A Practical Guide to Privacy Manifests and Required Reason APIs
Submitting a Rork-generated Expo app to the App Store can trigger Privacy Manifest warnings even when you never wrote the offending code. Here is how to clear both Required Reason API and SDK manifest issues before you submit.