Ship EAS Updates to a Few First, and Halt Automatically on Crash Rate
Because OTA updates reach everyone instantly, a bad update reaches everyone instantly too. Here is a three-layer design: ship EAS Update to a small canary, decide expand-or-halt from crash-free rate automatically, and hold a safety net on the device — with working code.
Don't Pay Out a Rewarded Ad on the Client's Word Alone — SSV Verification for a Rork (Expo) App on a Worker
Trusting the client-side 'reward earned' callback alone invites double-grants and spoofing. Here is how to wire AdMob server-side verification (SSV) into a Rork-generated Expo app, verify the signed callback on a Cloudflare Worker, and make payouts idempotent with transaction_id.
When your Rork app's production crashes arrive minified — wiring Hermes source maps and debug IDs into Sentry
Rork-generated Expo apps run on Hermes, so production crashes often arrive as index.bundle:1:284913 with no function names. Here is how to wire Hermes source maps and debug IDs into Sentry so your stack traces become readable.
What Rork's Browser Live Simulator Can Verify — and What Belongs on a Real Device
Rork's in-browser live simulator collapses the build-test loop dramatically, but it can't judge everything. Here's a clear, item-by-item split between what the simulator is enough for and what you must move to a real device through Companion.
Build Your Settings Screen From One Schema and Reuse It Across Apps
Hand-building a settings screen per app falls apart as your app count grows. Here is a schema-driven design that assembles the screen from declarative data and shares a common base across multiple apps, with working code.
Before a Free Preview Walks Out via Screenshot: Detecting Screenshots and Screen Recording in Rork/Expo
How to protect paid preview images from screenshots and screen recording in a Rork/Expo app: the limits of expo-screen-capture, native isCaptured monitoring, and an iOS/Android-aware blur design.
When Your App's Launch Got Quietly Slower Release After Release — Field Notes on TTI Instrumentation and a Startup Budget for Rork Apps
Rork apps tend to start fast on day one, then drift slower as you add features and SDKs. These field notes show how to catch cold-start regressions that averages hide, trace them to a release, and stop the drift with a CI startup budget.
Before You Ask 'Are You Sure?' — Consider an Undoable Delete
Showing a confirmation dialog every time someone removes a list item trains them to tap OK without reading. Here is how to build an undoable delete in a Rork (Expo) app, and where confirmation dialogs still belong.
Show the In-App 'What's New' Once, Without Nagging — Version Gating and Seen State
An in-app 'What's New' screen that fires on fresh installs or shows every launch gets users annoyed. Here is a version-gated, seen-state design that delivers it exactly once to people who updated — in real Rork (Expo) code, plus a shape you reuse across multiple apps.
When a User Rewinds the Clock, Today's Card Shouldn't Break — Day Boundaries and Streak Integrity in a Daily-Content App
Daily 'card of the day' content breaks under timezone travel and manual clock changes, showing duplicates, gaps, or lost streaks. Here is a deterministic day-key and monotonic-clock design, in real Rork (Expo) code, that keeps it solid.
Your Animation Keeps Running After You Leave the Screen — Focus-Aware Battery Savings in a Rork (Expo) App
In a Rork-generated Expo app, a gradient or breathing animation can keep running after you push another screen or background the app, quietly draining the battery without ever surfacing as jank. The cause is that Reanimated's withRepeat lives on the UI thread and the navigation stack keeps screens mounted. This shows a lifecycle design — useIsFocused plus AppState — that reliably stops off-screen and background loops, with working code.
Catch Real-Device Bugs Before You Ship: A Pre-Submission Checklist for Rork Share Links
Rork's editor preview runs in an ideal environment, so it hides bugs that only appear on real hardware. Here are the seven device differences to clear before you hand out a share link, in the order to check them, with the code to set up first.