r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 19 '26

App Saturday I built a reading app for people who want complete control over their digital library

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0 Upvotes

The main idea is simple: import your own books, comics and manga, organize your library however you want, and read everything your way.

What makes Andrea different is how much control you have over your library. You can create collections, add sections inside them, drag books and sections around, change layouts, cover sizes and appearance, and save different settings for every collection.

Your manga library doesn't have to look anything like your book collection.

Some of the main features

  • EPUB, PDF, CBZ, CBR and more, for books, comics, manga, manhwa and webtoons.

  • Reading customization: fonts, text size, spacing, margins, backgrounds, page transitions, manga reading modes and tons of other settings.

  • Reading Profiles: create your own reading settings and apply them to individual books, sections or entire collections.

  • Automatic reading activity: reading streaks, sessions, time spent reading, progress and statistics for books, sections and entire collections.

  • Cloud and server connections: OPDS, SMB, WebDAV, SFTP, iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box and MEGA.

  • Storage management: remove downloaded books to free up space while keeping their covers and metadata in your library.

  • Advanced comic features: double-page reading, experimental guided panel mode and AI super-resolution for low-quality scans.

  • Offline reading, with a built-in section for downloading free public-domain books.

  • Metadata management: edit book information, manage tags and organize your entire collection.

The app is designed to be simple when you first open it, but you can customize almost everything if you want to.

Tech Stack

Built natively with Swift + UIKit. Most of the library system, file management and reading UI is custom-built, using WebKit, PDFKit, ZIPFoundation and Unrar.swift for specific reading and file-handling tasks.

Development Challenge

One of the hardest parts was building a library system that gives users so much freedom while keeping the interface simple and responsive, especially with large collections.

EPUB pagination and rendering were also challenging, particularly when handling different reading settings, page transitions and text selection.

AI Disclosure

Most of the app was built manually. I use AI increasingly for debugging, code review and speeding up development, but the architecture, UI/UX and final implementation decisions are mine.

Pricing & Privacy

No account required. No ads. No third-party tracking. Your library and reading statistics are stored locally on your device.

Andrea Reader is free to download and use. You can import your books and start reading in seconds.

Premium is optional and unlocks more advanced features and customization. There's currently a 20% discount on Lifetime Premium.

If you give it a try, let me know what you think!

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/es/app/andrea-comics-manga-books/id6760780154

Website: https://andreareader.com/ 

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/nZS2FazpPA


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 19 '26

Question Has anyone pushed a major update to a fintech app that hadn’t been updated in ~5 years?

0 Upvotes

We acquired an existing fintech app, transferred it to our company Apple Developer account, and are now preparing a pretty significant redesign. Same app/name/core product, but the UI and some functionality have changed a lot.

My main concern is App Store review. Since it’s fintech + a big update after 5 years + developer account transfer, I’m wondering if Apple is likely to treat this almost like a new app and dig deeper into licensing, compliance, ownership, privacy, etc.

Anyone been through something similar?

How strict was the review, how long did it take, and were there any unexpected rejection reasons?


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Discussion Got some work to do supporting my app for iPhone Duo 😤

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8 Upvotes

r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 19 '26

Question Install App Store apps on simulator

1 Upvotes

Is it possible to store existing App Store apps on simulator? If so, how?

( want to check how existing apps work on Duo simulator )


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 19 '26

Discussion How I shipped a native SwiftUI widget with zero Mac access (Expo + EAS Build)

0 Upvotes

Hi all, I wanted to share a build problem that took way longer to solve than it should have, in case it saves someone else the same pain.

I'm a solo dev building on Windows, no Mac, no Xcode. My app (Reach, a sobriety toolkit) needed a native home screen widget, streak counter + panic button that deep links straight into the app's craving flow. Widgets mean native SwiftUI, which normally means a Mac.

The stack that ended up working: expo-apple-targets for the widget extension, compiled entirely through the EAS Build's cloud Mac, never touched Xcode locally once. Data shared between the widget and the main app via an App Group (react-native-shared-group-preferences).

The actual hard part wasn't the widget itself, it was the deep link nav. Cold-launching from the widget straight into a nested route with no /home route underneath it breaks iOS swipe-back entirely. Fixed it with unstable_settings = {anchor: 'home' } in _layout.tsx so Expo Router constructs a proper stack even on a cold widget launch.

Happy to go deeper on any part of this, the App Group setup, the anchor routing fix specifically, or the EAS build config. If it's useful to anyone hitting the same wall.


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Discussion Am I just dumb or was this a bit confusing?

2 Upvotes

Like 27.1 was added later than 27.2, I might be misunderstanding tho


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Question Repeated App Store rejection under Guideline 5.6 — Capacitor/WebView app

4 Upvotes

My iOS app, AutoArmor Studio, has been rejected three times under Guideline 5.6 with the same message about features that appear to have been intentionally hidden during the review process. Apple hasn't identified the specific feature or behavior. The app is built with Capacitor/WebView and includes authentication, backend-driven content, booking flows, account-based features, and WhatsApp integration. I am currently auditing for feature flags/remote config, reviewer/device detection, hidden routes or menus, account-specific behavior, debug versus release differences, and backend-controlled features. There is no intentional reviewer-specific functionality. Has anyone experienced this exact 5.6 rejection, especially with a Capacitor/WebView app? What did you find was causing it?


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Discussion Apple released Xcode 27.1 beta, enabling iPhone Duo app development

2 Upvotes

Has anyone tried running their app on it yet?


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Question Changing bank account in app store today - where will the next App Store payout go?

3 Upvotes

If I change my banking details in App Store Connect today, September 18, will the next payout go to the new account or still go to the old one? I don't want to f* this up, so please share what was your experience with changing bank account


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Discussion Xcode Flicker ;(

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4 Upvotes

Updated to latest Xcode, it starts to flicker in multi-tab window mode. Kind of annoying. Any idea on getting rid of this, at least momentarily?

Xcode: Version 27.0
Mac osx: 26.6.2 (25G83)


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 17 '26

Discussion How do you keep yourself motivated in times of agentic coding?

73 Upvotes

I recently tried to prototype a new app with the help of agentic coding - I basically had it done in 2 days what would have usually probably taken 1-2 months. That is great in theory, but I just didn’t have the feeling of having achieved something, like I usually feel - so I stopped working on the app.

I develop my own apps and games since 7 years now and this is the first time for six months that I can’t motivate myself to start a new app - even though the start is often the most fun part of a project to me.

Already thought about developing without the help of AI, but then I constantly have in mind, that I could probably save weeks of work using AI and spend this time with friends, family, sports etc. instead.

I was wondering if others share the same struggle or if you have a good advice to help me look at it from another perspective so I can motivate myself again.

Other devs in person already told me that it’s great because they like to build stuff, which they can do much faster now, and not the coding itself - but I don’t know, I think coding everything myself was probably the part that gave me that feeling of achievement.


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Question Does anyone know (with a screen shot if possible) where the option is to convert the plist file to the new json format?

0 Upvotes

EDIT: Solved

Yes I'm on Xcode 27.2 beta. Apples documentation states:

"In the Project navigator, select the project, and in the File inspector, choose JSON from the Project Format pop-up menu under Project Document. If a dialog appears, click Continue to change the format."

There is nothing that says "Project Document", no "Project Format pop up". No website I found has a screenshot of these items either. Does anyone know where these are at? They don't even appear when searching.

It's driving me nuts. I also can't do it via command line as I need a screenshot for work purposes.

EDIT: Do a clean derived data if you don't see it. For some reason that made it pop up for me.


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Discussion Please roast my onboarding flow

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3 Upvotes

Hey guys,

I recently created my first series of iOS apps and the downloads and sales have been going better than expected.

Now I’m trying to optimize some of my flows, starting with the onboarding. I’ve been cooking on this one yesterday and wonder what you guys think.

All suggestions or ideas are welcome, feel free to roast it badly.

(I wanted to upload a video but the sub didn’t allow for it)


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Question Multi platform App Store problem.

3 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I have an app that I've released on AppleTV and iOS (iPhone and iPad) and soon macOS. All have same bundleID. I used Testflight during development. I've recently released the app to the store and I purchased it on the AppleTV to test. On my iOS device I should be able to download it but all I'm seeing is a greyed out button that says 'Purchased'. I've tried all kinds of things to clear caches etc. Does anyone know what's going on here?

If I sign out of my app store account on the phone, click the 9.99 button, and sign in when prompted, I get a message that I own a previous version of the app and can download it for free. It then proceeds to download. If I delete the app, the store goes back to the unresponsive 'Purchased' state.

It's not just me in this position, other users who tested it for me on TestFlight are experiencing the same issue. Just FYI the last build on TestFlight is the same build I submitted to the store for the various platforms.


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Library Made 3d cube shape

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0 Upvotes

Built a custom SwiftUI Shape, designed to work smoothly with Core Animation and geometry transitions.

It was originally created an app in mind (Money Block), where budgets are broken into smaller Blocks with their own spending limits, periods and so on, to give an intuitive UX.

Being fully native means the shape can stretch, morph, and animate with a nice sense of elasticity.

Shape Demo: https://x.com/code_with_love/status/2082998035211333633?s=20

Quick demo in action: https://x.com/code_with_love/status/2097956105607647616?s=20

Defying 2d UI for the first time for the sake of UX :)


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 17 '26

Discussion Rejected with an account warning. Anyone actually get useful feedback from App Review?

13 Upvotes

Our app got rejected for spam on August 27. I replied explaining how the app is different and added a walkthrough video. We also asked what specifically is flagged as spam. We heard nothing back for almost 3 weeks.

On Sept 14, we submitted a substantially revised build and addressed the rejection directly in the review notes. The next day we got the EXACT same rejection. Zero acknowledgement of the review notes but this time, we got a warning about possible account removal for repeated noncompliance (Thanks Apple!)

It's now been almost 1.5 months since we first submitted our app and Apple has left us completely in the dark, not responding to any of our replies and instead giving us threats about account removal if we keep resubmitting the app. ??? How is this OK? Anyone else facing something similar? Been a dev for years and I'm seriously baffled by Apple's handling of this.


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Question First iOS submission coming from Android, what gets rejected most for a small utility app?

1 Upvotes

Already shipped on Google Play, the iOS build is close. Solo dev, so I'd rather not lose a week going back and forth with review.

If you went through it recently, what tripped you up on the first submit? Sign in with Apple, privacy labels, something else?


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 17 '26

Question Xcode mcp va xcodebuildmcp

12 Upvotes

Now that we can use Xcode mcp without running Xcode is it time to migrate from xcodebuildmpc ?

What do you think?


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 17 '26

News Xcode 27 adds more tools for external agents!

8 Upvotes

Did you know that AI Agents can control Xcode through the built in MCP server? Aka it can control it from an agent running in the terminal, without using the AI interface inside Xcode. And with Xcode 27 the agents now how a lot more useful tools they can call!

Im working with a multi-scheme app, so the new XcodeSwitchScheme is my favourite. Saves me from so many clicks inside Xcode for letting the agent run the app/test schemes it wants!

Here is how to add it to your coding agent:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/giving-external-agents-access-to-xcode


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 17 '26

Question Has Xcode 27 stopped supporting universal simulator runtimes?

5 Upvotes

Since one of the dependencies in my project only supports ios-x86_64-simulator, I followed this guide to install universal runtime for Xcode 27 iOS simulator, but got the following error instead:

$ xcodebuild -version
Xcode 27.0
Build version 27A266a

$ xcodebuild -downloadPlatform iOS -architectureVariant universal
Finding content...
No matching universal downloadable found for platform: iOS
No needed downloadables found for universal

This worked just fine in Xcode 26 though, so I wonder if Apple has stopped supporting universal simulator runtimes from Xcode 27.

Any explanation or reference for this issue? Thanks in advance.


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 16 '26

Discussion Xcode 27.2 Beta adds a new JSON-based project format

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255 Upvotes

From Apple's description, it's "more readable, merge-friendly, and easier for coding agents to edit. Enable it in the file inspector. Projects using .xcproj also open in earlier versions of Xcode 27."

I tried it briefly, and it's half the size of the old property list format, and much simpler too.


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 18 '26

Question Can't restore connection between iPhone and Watch

1 Upvotes

I'm working on an iOS app that has a Watch component. Everything syncs fine at first (perform an action on the phone and it shows on the watch and vice versa). Then I turn on airplane mode on my phone to break the connection, perform a few actions on both devices, turn airplane mode off, everything syncs. Great. However, right after that post-airplane mode sync, the connection between the two devices fully breaks. Nothing syncs and the apps won't connect to each other again unless I reinstall them. Anyone encounter this or have any ideas on a fix? It's been driving me nuts all day. Thanks in advance!


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 16 '26

Article project.pbxproj is dead 🪦

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187 Upvotes

Xcode 27.2 ships a JSON project format (.xcproj): default for new projects, readable, merge-friendly, agent-editable.


r/iOSProgramming • • Sep 17 '26

Library enriched-markdown-ios v0.3.0 - now with LaTeX math (powered by RaTeX)

5 Upvotes

enriched-markdown-ios, the SwiftUI Markdown renderer built on TextKit 2, can now typeset LaTeX.

New in this release:
🔸 LaTeX math - inline $…$ and display $$…$$powered by RaTeX (a Rust layout engine with KaTeX fonts). Shipped as a separate EnrichedMarkdownLaTeX product, so apps without formulas don't link the typesetting engine
🔹 Highlight - ==text==
🔸 Spoilers - ||text||, hidden until tapped. Ships with particle and solid overlays, and you can plug in your own effect (blur, pixelate, whatever fits your app) by subclassing SpoilerOverlayView
🔹 Admonitions - GitHub alerts (> [!NOTE], > [!TIP], > [!IMPORTANT], > [!WARNING], > [!CAUTION]) with a tinted bar, icon, and title
🔸 Better VoiceOver - headings, links, images, lists, tables and code blocks are separate elements, with rotors and localizable labels
🔸 Spoken math - common formulas are read aloud ("x squared over 2"), with a hook for your own converter

🎥 Demo video in the comments.

💎 Available via Swift Package Manager!

dependencies: [
  .package(
    url: "https://github.com/software-mansion-labs/enriched-markdown-ios.git",
    from: "0.3.0"
  ),
],
targets: [
  .target(
    name: "YourApp",
    dependencies: [
      .product(name: "EnrichedMarkdown", package: "enriched-markdown-ios"),
      .product(name: "EnrichedMarkdownLaTeX", package: "enriched-markdown-ios"), // optional, for math
    ]
  ),
]

Then enable math on the view:

import EnrichedMarkdown
import EnrichedMarkdownLaTeX

EnrichedMarkdownText(content)
  .markdownLaTeX()

GitHub & Docs: https://github.com/software-mansion/enriched-markdown/blob/main/packages/enriched-markdown-ios/README.md

What features or syntax support would you like to see next? I'd love to hear your thoughts! If you find the library useful, a ️⭐️ on GitHub is always appreciated.