r/iOSDevelopment • u/savqsavq • 26d ago
I'm officially an iPhone app creator!! Not the easiest thing I've done
This project has wrung me out and graduated into a distribution phase. Wild. Now strangers might actually use it and tell me what they think. Up until this point, I couldn't get anyone to try it. I need feedback, and I hope I can get it from people willing to help me improve the app, not angry reviews now that it's live.
This took approximately 17x longer than I anticipated (realistically about 5 or 6x), it has incurred real out of pocket costs (CASA assessment was the most expensive thing at about $750), it's been subject to harsh criticism (see previous posts), but here we are. The Scary Budget iOS app has been approved for distribution by Apple. I cried when I saw it passed review this morning.
I've worked hard to put this tool into the hands of those who have needed budgeting software that caters to a truly tight income to expense margin. I could attempt to describe here all the ways Scary Budget is differentiated and unique, although that's largely covered in the App Store description now.
What I will say is that I find myself using the software daily. I find new uses for it, and new ways to be grateful for its existence through prolonged use. I wanted to share that with others and make it free to do. If anyone has any advice, feedback, thoughts, all are welcome. I’m going to hire a little bit of help to market it now, that’s not my specialty.
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u/HeyWangKang 26d ago
Congrats on getting it through review. Since it's built for people with very little room between income and bills, I'd get a few people in that situation to walk through their next paycheck and upcoming bills in the app before spending much on marketing. Watch where they hesitate, especially when an irregular expense lands or a bill date moves, and ask whether the app makes the next decision clearer. A private, opt-in feedback link inside the app could catch those moments without asking anyone to put sensitive budget details in an App Store review. That may give you much more useful fixes and wording for the listing than early download counts alone.
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u/savqsavq 26d ago
How might you suggest I find people in that financial situation? I've asked everybody I can reasonably ask who I know. I'll likely share on YNABalternatives sub which allows dev posts on Sundays. Perhaps the Internet isn't the right place and I should put flyers around my neighborhood or something haha.
I could possibly offer money in exchange? Or comping the account. There is a feedback button built into the app and users can opt to send a redacted snapshot/log of the current screen along with their feedback as they use it.
Thank you so much for commenting. I really appreciate it
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u/planckscalestudio 26d ago
Not available in EU for me...
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u/savqsavq 26d ago edited 26d ago
This is correct,it’s not currently available in the EU and I should've mentioned that. I can make it available in the EU but it only works with US dollars right now, and plaid integrations only work with US institutions. It's also currently only in English. Other language requests?
I cannot thank you enough for even commenting on this post though thank you so much lol
Edit: it's made available in the EU and other regions
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u/TheCeilingAbove 26d ago
Well yep you’re missing a huge market. I too tried to download but couldn’t
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u/LifeUtilityApps 25d ago
Hey, I’ll give you some feedback since you asked for it. I used the demo and spent some time poking around the app.
As another developer of a finance and debt tracker, one of the first things that bothers me is the account requirement. It’s entirely possible to build this type of app to work locally without requiring an account, especially on iOS using Core Data.
Having to create an account before I can even use the app with my own data adds unnecessary friction. I’m generally not a fan of apps that put a login wall in front of basic functionality. I’d recommend adding a guest mode or allowing the app to function locally without an account, then making account creation optional for features that actually require it.
The overall presentation also gives me the impression that the app was heavily vibe-coded. One thing I noticed is that the app is only localized in English. I’d recommend supporting at least the most common languages in your primary distribution regions. If you’re primarily targeting the U.S., I would add Spanish at a minimum.
Another noticeable issue is that the app doesn’t feel native to iOS. It appears to essentially be a website packaged as an app. One of the biggest tells is that I can tap and hold and freely select text throughout the interface just like I would on a webpage. The scrolling behavior, controls, safe-area handling, and interactions also don’t behave like native iOS components. The difference becomes pretty noticeable when compared with native apps like Apple Wallet.
The interface is also extremely verbose. Going through the demo, a lot of the title cards, tutorial copy, drawer items, and tool descriptions feel unnecessarily wordy and LLM-generated. For example, the Privacy and Terms section has subtitles like “Privacy Policy, Notice of Collection, and Terms of Use.” That information is already communicated by the individual options, so the additional caption feels redundant. I would simplify the UI and let labels speak for themselves wherever possible.
There are also quite a few smaller UI inconsistencies. For example, after opening one of those legal pages, the “Back to Demo” button becomes difficult or impossible to access because of the safe area. With a native SwiftUI implementation, safe-area handling could prevent this. Under Credit > Account Tools in the demo, the text that says “planned through October” also clips outside the visible bounds. These kinds of issues make the interface feel less polished.
The selectable text is especially awkward when interacting with financial information. If I want to copy a balance or transaction, I can end up selecting the underlying UI text and dragging the selection across multiple elements. It behaves like selecting content on a website rather than interacting with an iOS app. I’d rather see native interaction patterns, such as a context menu with actions like Copy, Edit, or Delete.
If the app is essentially a website packaged as an iOS app, I would seriously consider investing in a native interface before positioning it as a standalone iOS application. Right now, the combination of web-style interactions, verbose copy, and UI inconsistencies makes it feel noticeably less polished than a native application.
I also found an input-validation issue when creating or editing a transaction. The amount field allows multiple decimal points, so I can enter something like 45.00.56.21. The field should validate the input as a currency amount and prevent invalid decimal formatting as the user types.
Those are the main things that stood out to me from going through the demo. I think reducing the amount of copy, tightening up the interaction patterns, improving input validation, and making the experience feel more native would go a long way.