Answering the New App Store Age Ratings — Field Notes From Updating Several Live Apps
Notes from re-answering the updated App Store age rating questions across live apps, covering the new 13+/16+/18+ tiers, the four new question categories, setting a higher minimum age, and what it means for apps you ship with Rork.
Cloud-Synced Folders Break App Builds — Excluding Build Artifacts From Sync to Fix It for Good
A project living in Dropbox or iCloud Drive stopped building one morning. The cause was sync creating conflicted copies inside build artifacts. Here is how I excluded node_modules and Pods from sync to stop the recurrence, told as an indie developer's field notes.
Shipping a Rork App to a Real Device Without a Mac: What the Browser Simulator Covers, and Its Pitfalls
Rork's in-browser simulator lets you try an app without a Mac, but some bugs only appear on real hardware. Separate what the simulator can and cannot verify, and get past the real-device wall before you submit.
When Your AdMob Earnings Suddenly Get Deducted: Preventing Invalid Traffic as a Solo Developer
Invalid traffic deductions in AdMob are unsettling because the cause is rarely obvious. From the perspective of running several apps solo, here is a minimal setup that prevents the most common accidents, plus how to respond when a deduction actually happens.
Building Your Second Rork App: How Much of the First One Should You Reuse?
Once your first app ships, the temptation is to clone it whole and swap the contents. But what you reuse and what you rebuild quietly decides how heavy your maintenance becomes. A look at where to draw the reuse line, from running several apps in parallel.
Reclaiming the Pre-Submit Checks You Lose When Publishing Without Xcode
Rork Max's two-click publishing skips the Xcode Organizer, making it easy to miss usage strings, version bumps, and Bundle IDs. Here is a quick pre-submit self-audit you can run yourself, with how to read the generated files.
Spotting the 30% of Bugs Rork Can't Fix Itself — A Hand-Fix Workflow Built Around Export
Rork resolves roughly 70% of the bugs it hits on its own; the remaining 30% needs your hands. Here is the criteria I use to decide whether to keep re-prompting or export and fix it myself, plus working code for the fixes.
Why Your Rork Max Native Swift Widget Freezes After Day One — Designing the TimelineProvider Refresh Budget
Native Swift home screen widgets generated by Rork Max stop rotating after the first day unless you understand the TimelineProvider refresh budget. Here is how reloadPolicy, App Groups, and deep links fit together in a real app.
Will Rork Max's $200 a Month Pay for Itself? Decide It With a Formula
When you are torn over Rork Max at $200 a month, here is a break-even formula, a script that runs a sensitivity analysis, and a way to judge the timing by three months of buildup rather than a single month—with notes from indie development.
Rewrite Just the First Three Lines of Your Rork App's Store Description
Pasting Rork's generated description straight into App Store Connect leaves value on the table. On iOS, almost no one reads past 'more'. Here's how to rewrite the few lines that actually get read—and why iOS and Google Play need different openings.
A Three-Layer AI Cost Design for Rork Apps After Apple Opened Foundation Models to Small Developers
Apple now offers Foundation Models on Private Cloud Compute at no charge for developers under two million first downloads. Here is a three-layer cost architecture for Rork apps, with a simulation script and working bridge code.
Rork Lab This Week: Apple's Free Foundation Models, and Knowing When to Go Deeper
Editor's notes on four posts: data-driven triggers for moving up to Rork Max, a three-layer AI cost design after Apple opened Foundation Models, WidgetKit within Expo, and catching subscription refunds.