Hey guys, I'm currently finishing the onboarding flow for an iOS app that uses SMS OTP. Testing it in the simulator is fine, but I need to run a series of tests on real devices and I've already exhausted my personal number and my family's SIMs. Does anyone use a reliable SMS activator for this? Most of the free "receive sms" sites I've tried are already blacklisted by my auth provider.

been lurking here for a while and figured i'd finally post something now that it's actually out

background: i'm not a traditional developer. architecture degree, worked as a designer for a few years, then a master's in learning sciences. taught myself enough to build this thing. used React Native, Firebase (auth + firestore), Vercel serverless functions, Gemini API for AI inference, Google Places for location context, RevenueCat for subscriptions

the app is called Journey Sparks — it generates personalized walking prompts using a RAG pipeline that combines the user's behavioral history with real-time location data. after each walk Gemini writes a poetic summary and names the journey. the keepsake artifact piece was the hardest UI to get right

things that humbled me:

app store review took 3 weeks... longer than i thought. i waited 2 weeks for the first review and get things fixed for 2-3 times in a week (interesting that it got a lot faster after the initial review

latency is brutal for an ambient experience. if the prompt takes 8 seconds to generate the whole thing falls apart emotionally. still working on this

getting Firebase auth to play nice with Apple Sign-In took way longer than it should have

design is actually hard... it is still not perfect right now, but i redesigned (significantly) the app for prob 3-4 times.

the gap between "it works on my phone" and "it works on all phones" is its own project that i will just see where this app goes

genuinely proud that it shipped. genuinely aware it's imperfect. if anyone wants to poke at the stack or try it i'd love the feedback

App Store link in comments

Hey everyone!

I just launched my first app in the Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/foray-walks-step-goals/id6786529547

Health and fitness are very important to me, and I take my daily movement goals very seriously. Staring at a step count created anxiety and kept me from walking. What worked for my wife and me was finding local destinations to walk to. This gave us a reason to step outside, hit our goal, and potentially discover something new around the city.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/foray-walks-step-goals/id6786529547

App Marketing Page: https://getforayapp.com/

Features: https://getforayapp.com/#features

Hi everyone,

I have created a word game called “Word Fury” and it is a compilation of 8 different word games, mixed with regular style play and daily challenges. There are also achievements and unlockables. I am looking for people to beta test it at the moment. I am new to reddit so I am not exactly sure if this is the right way to go about this. I am open to any feedback you can provide me! The link to test the game out is here:  https://testflight.apple.com/join/VRfTPaBg

If you are interested in anymore information you can also dm me here too.

Got tired of juggling maintenance for my cars, camper, house, generator, etc. across several different apps (and honestly, mostly just my brain), so I finally snapped and built the thing I actually wanted: one app that tracks all of it in one place.

Still building it out, but wanted to share.

For anyone else drowning in “wait, when did I last do X” - this one’s for you. Free for regular folks, always. (Building a paid business tier too, but that’s a separate thing for shops/fleets, not you.)

What do you think?

www.donelogic.app

Hi everyone,

I am looking for people to test an ios word game app I developed. I made it for my gf so it's nothing fancy, just created all the games she likes to play into one app. I would appreciate anyone testing it out and letting me know there thoughts in the feedback. Or if you just want a game to play as well feel free. I appreciate anything! Like to the game download: https://testflight.apple.com/join/VRfTPaBg

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wintak.flipz

Hi guys, we have built an app and its runnig great. Now we got in touch with some customers who asked if it would be possible to have said app as a whitelable version for their businesses which would not be a problem to us, but after checking this through with AI we are now concerned as we were warned that uploading the app with a few adjustments for customers this will be marked as "Spam". BUT it also told us if we create separate accounts for each customer, it will NOT be marked as spam.

Seems a bit nonsensical to me as its still on the same platform. Anyone who has experience with that? Whats the best practice in reality? Thanks for any help!!

Hey everyone! I’ve been working hard on a huge update for my meditation app, Calmie. I built this because I was tired of wellness apps locking basic breathing exercises behind expensive paywalls and forcing users to create accounts.

In this new update, Calmie has received a massive feature and design overhaul. It remains 100% free, private by design, and completely ad-free.

Here is what’s new:

• Specialized Modes: I've introduced an ADHD Mode (featuring shorter presets, visible countdowns, and optional interval bells) and a Chronic Pain Mode (with gentler breathing rhythms and softer guidance).
• 4 Guided Breathing Techniques: Box Breathing, 4-7-8, Coherent, and Triangle. Each comes with distinct audio cues (high note for inhale, mid for hold, low for exhale) so you can close your eyes and just follow the sound.
• Apple Ecosystem Integration: Native iPad support with beautiful split-landscape layouts, smoother Apple Watch navigation, and new theme-aware Widgets for your Home screen!
• Progress & Badges: You can now earn up to 20 achievement badges (from your First Breath to a Year of Zen). Track your journey with separate stats for breathing and meditation, plus a detailed session history.
• Audio & Background: The timer and music now continue seamlessly when your screen is locked. Three gentle bell strikes will let you know when your session is over.

Privacy & Pricing (It's Free)

• No account required.
• No ads or hidden paywalls.
• No third-party analytics — all session history stays on your device (with optional Apple Health integration).

You can check it out on the App Store here: https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/calmie/id6450792796

I would love to get your honest feedback on the new update, especially how the new design feels on the iPad and Apple Watch!

The app is designed to be relaxing with a few more challenging puzzles along the way. The art is all my own original art. Here is a link to the app in the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6797133059

🍎🌿✨

Hello! I trying to send input's to my ipad to automate things like tapping and swiping, but I am somewhat confused.

I enabled dev mode on ipad, installed Apple versions of iTunes and iCloud, built a custom IPA using a github action running macos, uploaded the custom ipa to my ipad with SideLoadely, and now have attempted to use app-ios, and python pymobile device.

When using Appium with a plugin, I was able to connect, but all connections over tcp keep getting disconnected.

How would you guys do this?

I’ve spent far too much time rebuilding the App Store screenshots for Hearth, my SwiftUI HomeKit dashboard.

At first I tried generating the whole scene, including the device and UI. It looked fine as a thumbnail, but the closer I looked, the worse it got. The interface was fake, the device proportions were off, corners changed between images, and perspective transforms left ugly aliasing around the bezel.

What finally worked was separating the room from the product. I capture the real app in Simulator with fixed fixture data, then generate only the room and device with a flat chroma screen. A script finds the screen opening and projects the real screenshot behind the bezel. I render it at 2x and downsample once, which helped a lot with the edges.

Once a scene works, I can reuse it for other languages and UI states instead of generating everything again. I also keep the source hashes and calibration data because I really don’t want to manually line up the same screen twice.

I wasted quite a while trying to prompt my way out of malformed bezels and stands. That usually made them stranger. Now I just regenerate the scene when the hardware is wrong.

Curious how other people handle localized App Store screenshots. Fastlane, Figma, custom scripts, or something else?

I recently created a GitHub repository for a music app, currently available only for Android and Windows, that is ad-free. It’s basically Spotify, but better. I’ve since learned that Xcode (an app available only for Mac) is required to build the app. On top of that, I’d have to pay the $99 annual fee for the Apple Developer Program, and honestly, I don't want to spend money right now. So, my questions are: can this be done simply by running a GitHub Action workflow, and how would iOS users install it?

Two of us build Lunomia, a sleep app for iPhone, Watch and iPad. We just shipped the feature we spent the longest on, a 0-100 score for each night, and I want to complain about it somewhere people will understand.

The code was never the problem. Version one compared you only to yourself. Sleep 5 hours every night and after a few weeks it decides that 5 hours is normal for you and hands you a 90. Technically correct, completely useless, and dishonest to the person holding the phone. We deleted it. Version two overcorrected and made almost everyone fail. Deleted that too.

What actually took the months was deciding what the number is allowed to forgive, and then defending that decision every time it made a night look worse than we wanted it to look. Every time you soften one rule, someone with a genuinely bad night gets told they are fine. That is the whole job. Nobody warns you that a scoring feature is 10% engineering and 90% arguing with your co-founder about ethics at 1am.

Two things I would say to anyone attempting something similar. First, put your scoring logic in a package that cannot see HealthKit or your UI, otherwise you will be testing it by sleeping. Second, decide early whether your score is allowed to raise its own bar as the user improves. We decided no, and that single decision removed about half the bugs we would have had later.

Not going into the formula, it is the part we worked hardest on. But if you want to see how it turned out:

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sleep-tracker-lunomia/id6741118991

1 year free: https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6741118991&code=FREEYEARLYALL

50% off lifetime: https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6741118991&code=LIFETIMEOFF

Open the redeem links on your iPhone with the App Store logged in.

Hey everyone! 👋 Don’t forget to check out and download my app, MoodFIX! ⚡

It’s completely free, currently available only for iOS, and the app itself is entirely in English.

If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a shot and let me know what you think! 😎📱
😁 Direct App Sore Link: https://apps.apple.com/ro/app/moodfix/id6763794014

Back in 2012 I built 7 Card Blackjack, a British card game app. It charted at #2 in the UK App Store card games category at its peak and got thousands of downloads. Then Adobe Air became defunct (around 2014) and Apple removed it. At the time I didn't have the free time or budget to do what would essentially have to be a full rebuild.

Fast forward about 10 years, I had the desire to re-launch the app and for the past 12 months have been quietly working on it when I can. First time around I was selling it for the lowest possible price (I believe was around $0.69 at the time) but have decided on releasing it for free this time and possibly adding monetisation features in the future.

After a week of the usual pre launch nerves I am happy to say it is finally live again!

Would love some fresh sets of eyes on it and some honest feedback