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PLAY — Google Play's target API level 36 requirement took effect yesterday, August 31. From today, new apps and updates must target Android 16VISIBILITY — Apps still on API 35 stay listed but disappear for users on newer Android versions. No error is raised; new installs simply fade, which makes the change easy to missEXTENSION — If you missed the deadline, an extension through November 1, 2026 can be requested in Play Console — best filed alongside a concrete migration planAPPLE — On the Apple side, the event lands September 9 and iOS 27 is reported to ship September 14. Testing generated apps on iOS 27 hardware before release week is time well spentEXPO — Expo released expo-paste-input on August 28, a native module that brings image, GIF, and sticker paste to React Native TextInputEAS — EAS Observe reached general availability on August 20, putting crash and performance monitoring on the same EAS platform as builds and updatesPLAY — Google Play's target API level 36 requirement took effect yesterday, August 31. From today, new apps and updates must target Android 16VISIBILITY — Apps still on API 35 stay listed but disappear for users on newer Android versions. No error is raised; new installs simply fade, which makes the change easy to missEXTENSION — If you missed the deadline, an extension through November 1, 2026 can be requested in Play Console — best filed alongside a concrete migration planAPPLE — On the Apple side, the event lands September 9 and iOS 27 is reported to ship September 14. Testing generated apps on iOS 27 hardware before release week is time well spentEXPO — Expo released expo-paste-input on August 28, a native module that brings image, GIF, and sticker paste to React Native TextInputEAS — EAS Observe reached general availability on August 20, putting crash and performance monitoring on the same EAS platform as builds and updates
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Rork36Rork Max17AdMob14Expo13App Store13monetization7React Native5Google Play5iOS5ASO5Android4Swift4
Rork Basics/2026-09-01Beginner

Starting with the EAS Observe free tier, and why Crashlytics stays installed

EAS Observe reached general availability on August 20. I looked into consolidating down to one monitoring service and found that native crashes are still out of scope. Here are the free-tier limits and the setup details that trip people up.

Rork Dev/2026-09-01Intermediate

Adding image paste with expo-paste-input, and moving the disappearing file:// URIs out of cache

How to let users paste images and GIFs into a chat input with expo-paste-input. The URIs that onPaste hands you are temporary files that can vanish before the user hits send. Here is the relocation code and the order I verify it on real devices.

Business/2026-08-31Advanced

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.

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.

Rork Dev/2026-08-29Advanced

The Remote Config keys you add after your release path closes are invisible to the build already on devices

A record of recounting what I can still change remotely before my release path closes. A key you add in the console does nothing unless a build that reads it is already on devices. Which switches to ship in the last build, and a shared-defaults bug I measured.

Business/2026-08-25Intermediate

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.

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.

Business/2026-08-11Intermediate

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.

App Dev/2026-07-29Advanced

The same wallpaper appeared twice in my catalog — measuring perceptual hash thresholds across 324 images

Four approaches to image catalog deduplication measured end to end: SHA-256, dHash, a hue signature, and a block signature. dHash alone scored 0.9% precision. Here is why perceptual hashes collapse on smooth images, and how the ground truth turned out to be the thing that was wrong.

Business/2026-07-19Intermediate

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.

Rork Dev/2026-07-19Intermediate

When Rork Max's Two-Click Submit Stalls, Tell Which Layer Broke

Rork Max's one-click install and two-click submit fold the complexity of iOS shipping into four hidden layers. When the abstraction leaks and your submission stalls, this map helps you tell which layer failed and fix it yourself.