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.
Put Your Live Rork App on a Spare iPhone Before iOS 27 Ships
iOS 27 arrives in September and developer beta 7 is already out. Here is how to turn an old iPhone into a beta device, what to check first, and which fixes you can ship from JavaScript without waiting for review.
When 1.10.0 Gets Locked Out: Measuring Four Version Comparison Approaches for Forced Updates
A remote-config gate for minimum supported version, rebuilt after measuring four version comparison approaches. Includes the cases where localeCompare reports equality, the fail-open boundary, and the incident caused by gating on a build still in review.
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.
When and How to Remove Features Nobody Uses — Auditing and Safely Retiring Functionality in Rork-Built Apps
Unused features quietly make an app harder to maintain. A field-tested playbook from running six wallpaper apps in parallel — how to measure feature usage, decide what to retire, and remove functionality in three safe stages with Remote Config.
Taking Inventory of Your AdMob Ad Units — All the Way to App Open Cooldown Design
When rewarded and interstitial units pile up and you can no longer tell which one fires on which screen, here is the inventory process I use, plus the design for adding a cooldown to an App Open ad that otherwise shows on every launch.
Designing a Rork App That Doesn't Get Deleted — A Solo Developer's Playbook for the First Week
Most Rork apps die in the first three days. Starting with where deletion data actually comes from (not Firebase, on iOS), here is a first-week design for D0, D1, D3 and D7 — with the code that makes each stage measurable.
Taking a Rork App From 'Working' to 'Ready to Sell on the Store'
The finishing workflow that takes a Rork-generated app from 'it runs' to 'it actually sells on the store'. Ten checkpoints I learned the hard way running solo apps for over a decade.
Operating Rork Apps for Monthly Recurring Revenue: Updates, Churn, and Lineup Strategy
An iOS app cannot intercept the moment a user cancels. Detecting auto-renew-off, killing involuntary churn with billing grace periods, and measuring cohort retention the same way every month — the operations work behind monthly revenue in a Rork app.