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.
Building a One-Time Code Field in Expo — SMS Autofill and Segmented Display Together
A six-digit verification screen looks trivial, but once you account for SMS autofill, pasting, and deleting one digit at a time, it needs real care. Here is how to nail the iOS and Android autofill first, then build a segmented look on top of a single TextInput that does not break.
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.
When Your Finance App's AI Keeps Dumping Everything Into 'Other' — Field Notes on Catching Silent Classification Drift
An AI expense classifier in a Rork finance app can be accurate at launch and quietly decay over months until the monthly advice goes wrong. Here is how I instrumented confidence and category distribution to get ahead of the drift, with working code.
Should You Show a Read More Link? Let the Rendered Text Decide in Rork (Expo)
Clamping a product description to three lines and adding a Read more toggle sounds simple, until the toggle also appears under single-line text. This walks through measuring the real line count with onTextLayout so the toggle only shows when text actually overflows, covering iOS vs Android quirks, expand animation, and font scaling.
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.
When Your App Store Connect API Pipeline Quietly Drops Days — Field Notes on JWT Expiry, Report Lag, and Reconciliation
Automated App Store Connect API pipelines rarely stop — they leak. This piece breaks down the three silent failure modes behind 401, 404, and 429, and shows how a fetch ledger, a 72-hour backfill window, and a weekly reconciliation query keep daily sales and review data complete.
When a Rork Video Call Is 'Connected' but Only One Side Can Hear — Field Notes on Instrumenting WebRTC's Silent Failures
Rork video calls that go one-way or quietly drop on the subway, diagnosed by measuring WebRTC with getStats instead of guessing. Covers ICE restart, verifying TURN relay, and clean teardown.
Adding Home-Screen Quick Actions to a Rork App — dynamic items without cold-launch drops
How to implement the long-press quick actions on a Rork (Expo) app icon. Covers static vs dynamic items, the iOS/Android differences, and the cold-launch problem where the action arrives before the router is ready — solved with a hold-and-replay design.
Previewing Files In-App in Rork — calling Quick Look safely from Expo
How to preview PDFs, images, and Office documents in place without sending users out of your app, using Quick Look (QLPreviewController) from Rork (Expo). Covers pre-downloading remote files, the local-URL requirement, the Android FileProvider alternative, and handling the share button.
Adding App Store Promoted In-App Purchases to a Rork App
How to list purchases on your App Store product page and carry a buyer straight into your in-app purchase flow. Covers receiving deferred purchases that arrive before the app is launched or the user is signed in, with implementation for both react-native-iap and StoreKit 2.
Adding a keyboard toolbar to Rork text inputs — unifying iOS InputAccessoryView and an Android bar into one component
How to add a toolbar pinned above the keyboard — a Done button or quick-insert actions — to the React Native app Rork generates. The iOS InputAccessoryView and a hand-built Android bar, folded into one reusable component, with working code.