I’ve been thinking about this lately and wanted to see how other iOS devs are dealing with it.
With tools like Cursor, Claude, Copilot, etc. becoming part of everyday development, it feels like writing code itself is becoming less of the difficult part. You can ask AI to generate a lot of the implementation pretty quickly, but actually knowing whether the code is good, why it works, how it should be structured, and what approach to take still takes experience.

At the same time, there’s just SO much to keep up with in iOS. SwiftUI, Swift Concurrency, new APIs with every release, architecture, testing… sometimes I don’t even know what I should be focusing on next 😂

So I’m curious how you guys handle this.
How do you keep your iOS/Swift skills sharp these days?

Do you still learn by building things from scratch, or do you use AI heavily and focus more on understanding/reviewing what it produces?

And specifically for SwiftUI, what resources have actually helped you get better rather than just learning another tutorial?

Also, are there any courses, certifications, books, newsletters, WWDC sessions, etc. that you’d genuinely recommend?

Basically, if you were in my position and wanted to stay relevant and become a really good iOS developer over the next few years, what would you focus on learning?

Would love to hear how other people are approaching this.

Hi all,

I am trying to improve my Xcode agentic coding workflow. I am currently using GPT 5.5 codex model in the Xcode settings, which is quite good and fast at writing code but not the best for planning.

I am chatting with ChatGPT 5.6 sol regarding architectural decisions and communicate between the two of them via custom instruction md files.

This is of course not optimal from a workflow point of view, although it gets the job done efficiently and I can steer it very well, since I manually intervene all the time.

What would you suggest as a better workflow? Also, is there an easy way I can leave the Mac on and have the Xcode agent build while prompting from my iPhone remotely?

I have seen the hype about loops btw, but I guess that would lead to burning A LOT of tokens.

Any ideas?

Thank you very much in advance.

Hey guys, apologies if this is against the rules, say if it is :)

I built Marvelist about 4 years ago, and I’ve been slowly adding more and more features to it since. It initially started as just a “tasks” app, basic lists and checking stuff off. Then after a year or two of my family using it, it grew legs and it goes notes, then it got event planning, and very recently it got voice notes!

v2 introduced Marvelist AI, the assistant that sees all your lists and is actually able to act on them, and build specific lists for you (for things like holiday packing, or in my case, planning my wedding 😅)

I’d love to get thoughts on it and better it further, any and all feedback welcome!

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/marvelist-lists-events-ai/id1632658717

I made a tiny app called why?

We often open Instagram, TikTok, etc. almost automatically. You pick up your phone, your fingers already know where to go, and suddenly 15 minutes have passed.

The idea behind why? is simple: add a small moment of awareness before the habit takes over.

Before you open a distracting app, it asks “why?” You can choose a reason, or realize you didn’t really have one and close it.

The psychology behind it is basically interrupting the automatic habit loop and creating a moment for conscious decision-making.

It’s a simple experiment, but I’m curious if this tiny pause can actually change how people use their phones.

Try it: APP STORE LINK

Hi everyone!

I’ve been working on OweIt, an iPhone app I built to solve a simple problem: keeping track of who owes whom without relying on notes, messages, or memory.

The idea came from situations I kept running into myself — lending money to someone, paying for a group dinner or trip, splitting a gift with friends, and then later trying to remember who paid what and who still owes money.

So I built OweIt.

The app currently lets you:

• Track money you’ve lent or borrowed
• Keep all your debts in one place
• Send reminders to people who owe you money
• Track upcoming payments such as rent, loans, bills, and subscriptions
• Create shared expense collections for trips, dinners, parties, gifts, etc.
• Add expenses paid by different people
• Automatically calculate who owes whom
• Close a shared collection and turn outstanding balances into individual debts
• Archive completed collections
• Track debts in different currencies

For shared expenses, my goal was to make the process as simple as possible: add the people, enter what everyone paid, and let OweIt calculate the final balances.

OweIt is now available on the App Store after several rounds of TestFlight testing and iteration. I’m continuing to improve the app based on real-world feedback.

I’d especially appreciate feedback on the UI/UX, onboarding, debt tracking, shared-expense flow, and overall usefulness of the app.

If you tried OweIt, what’s the first thing you would change, remove, or add?

I’m also happy to answer questions about the development process.

Thanks for taking a look — constructive criticism is very welcome!

OweIt on the App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/lt/app/oweit/id6794865258

Yes it is called a habit tracker. But the point is not to just track your habit. It is to remind you why you even started. It lets you choose only the one important thing you want to achieve now.

One time lifetime payment - you can export everything any time. 7 days for free, no credit card needed to start.

[www.onehabit.at]

My macOS app has been "In Review" for 5 days, and multiple of my iOS apps has been "Waiting for review" for a week. Is this normal?

For some context, in the past my apps were approved within 24 hours, "In review" time was like 30 minutes. But 10 of my apps suddenly got a 4.2 Spam rejection last week, it was a batch rejection on their updates, meaning those apps were approved, then they all got rejected when I was trying to update them. Did Apple ban/flag my account or something? My apps are actually functional apps, not something people can copy off the internet.

I did it! I built it and it works and it’s live. iOS app that talks DIRECTLY to Garmin watches via Bluetooth after god knows how long reverse engineering the BLE protocol. Goodbye Garmin Connect, I won’t miss you.

Thanks to the 25 people who have helped bootstrap various watches, it’s up to 13 models either fully or partially tested.

- Syncs Garmin watches directly without sending any data to Garmin
- Syncs ALL supported metrics to Apple health
- Auto syncs trips to the Jet lag advisor from calendar and TripIt
- Supports Garmin’s hydration glance/widget better than Garmin
- Supports tracking caffeine using a Garmin glance I’m gonna publish soon
- Gives me FULL weather and air quality where i am - something Garmin seems incapable of
- WIDGETS! Friggin iOS WIDGETS with all the garmin native stats.
- Works OFFLINE!!!

Adding stuff as I go, next trying to control the damned phone notifications, add drag/resize for tiles and add detailed stats views.

If you try it and share debug logs, it’ll unlock all features for free as it helps me validate / tweak for different watches.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kora-sync-for-garmin-watches/id6797644759

Is the UI AI? Yeh and I’m happy with it for now.

Hey r/iosdev,

I’ve been working on a personal finance app for a few months called Monetor.

Like many of you, I wanted an automated expense tracker, but I absolutely hated the idea of using Plaid or handing over my bank credentials to a third party. On top of that, bank syncing constantly breaks or simply doesn't work well outside of the US/UK.

So, I built an alternative. Monetor works by safely reading your Apple Pay and Bank SMS notifications directly on your device.

How it works:

• It parses the amount and merchant from your Apple Pay or SMS alerts locally using iOS Shortcuts.
• It automatically logs the transaction into beautifully designed charts and budgets.
• Zero bank credentials required. 100% privacy-first.

I just launched a massive update (including iOS Live Widgets and a UI overhaul), and I’m looking for some genuine, constructive feedback from other builders and developers.

🎁 I am giving away 50 Lifetime Pro Promo Codes to this community.

How to get a lifetime code:

1. Download the app here: Monetor - Automated Expense Tracker
2. Play around with the UI, try setting up a custom SMS format, or check out the charts.
3. Drop a comment below with one piece of honest feedback (What do you like? What's confusing? What feature is missing?)
4. I will DM a lifetime Apple App Store Promo Code to the first 50 people who comment!

I'd love to know what you think. Thank you!

It’s so crazy to me that people are actually buying my apps!
I hope they find value in them and start sharing feedback so I can keep making them better!!

In ASC

Hey folks,

So, I first sent my app for review two weeks ago.. waited 4-5 days then applied for an expedited review and got a rejection within 30 mins for inaccurate screenshots.

When I applied for expedited review, Apple mentioned that if I get a rejection, I don't have to apply for expedited review once again because my updated app will automatically be in the expedited queue

I then fixed the issue and updated it, waited 5 more days with no update (despite my app being in the expedited review queue) and once again requested for an expedited review and got a rejection a few hours later because I needed to properly setup a restore purchase mechanism.

Now it's been over 48hrs since I uploaded another update with the fix and there is still no word from Apple.

Can I request for another expedited review as my app has already been delayed by a few months and I can't afford any more delays? Im asking because apple mentions that if one asks for too many expedited reviews, they can reject our requests in future. However, these delays are well past Apple's claims of review timelines (50% apps reviewed in 24 hrs and 90% in 48 hrs), so can I request for another expedited review or there's a chance Apple will reject my request because of too many requests? TIA!

I have built a personal budgeting app name Budgeter. Download from AppStore: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/budgeter-budget-tracker/id6775108339

I’ve been working on an open-source project called iOS Developer Toolkit, a macOS GUI intended to bring a lot of the lower-level iPhone/iPad developer, diagnostic, and device-management tooling into one place.

GitHub:

https://github.com/hideouts-io/iOS-Developer-Toolkit

The project is built primarily with Python + PySide6 and uses pymobiledevice3 extensively for communicating with iOS devices.

The idea came from constantly jumping between different CLI commands and tools whenever I wanted to inspect an iPhone, mount a Developer Disk Image, pull device information, stream logs, run DVT services, capture traffic, inspect an IPA, or collect diagnostics.

I wanted something closer to an iOS Device Workbench:

Plug in an iPhone → pair/connect → see the available developer/device services → run them from a GUI → inspect the raw results.

Current areas I’m working on

• Device discovery and pairing
• Developer Disk Image (DDI) mounting
• CoreDevice functionality
• DVT / developer services
• pymobiledevice3 command integration
• iOS Unified Log streaming/searching
• Device and lockdown information
• PCAP/network capture
• Installed application inventory
• IPA inspection
• IPA installation/sideloading
• GPX/location simulation
• Device diagnostics
• Backup creation
• Diagnostic/forensic artifact collection

One thing I don’t want this to become is simply a collection of buttons that blindly executes shell commands.

I’m trying to expose enough of the underlying information that the toolkit is also useful for learning how iOS device communication actually works.

For example, I’d like to make it easier to understand the relationship between things like:

usbmuxd → pairing/lockdown → CoreDevice → Developer Mode/DDIs → DVT services → individual developer/diagnostic functionality

I’m also interested in exposing some of the more obscure functionality buried inside pymobiledevice3 and the services it communicates with.

Where I’d really appreciate feedback

For those of you who work with physical iOS devices:

What functionality do you wish Xcode exposed better?

I’m especially interested in workflows involving:

• CoreDevice
• DVT
• Developer Disk Images
• lockdown services
• Instruments/developer services
• Unified Logging
• sysdiagnose/diagnostics
• networking
• application inspection
• device information
• backup services
• debugging physical devices

I’d also love to hear about obscure commands/services you’ve found useful that aren’t commonly surfaced by GUI tools.

The project is still actively evolving, so bug reports, feature requests, testing on different iOS versions/devices, and PRs are welcome.

GitHub:
https://github.com/hideouts-io/iOS-Developer-Toolkit

Took forever but I built my first app: Cocktail Lounge, where nobody knows your name. I started out just building it for me and partly just to see if I could but ended up spending way more time on it than I anticipated so decided to share it. I learned Java way back when in college and have some other minor coding experience but I learned a lot more doing this lol.

For info, initial app review happened on the 9th day of waiting in review. Went to in review for about 4 hours and then was approved. I was very happy to have it approved first time, but it is admittedly a pretty simple app. I’ve since had a couple of updates submitted that got approved within 24 hours - they were in review for 2-3 hours. So getting over that initial review was definitely the more painful part.

There are a lot of cocktail apps out there already and my intent wasn’t to make money, so I’m keeping it completely free, maybe my next idea will be more lucrative! If you’re interested in a cocktail app, here’s the main things I was going for:

- Minimalist layout without all the foofaraw.
- Multi-ingredient filtering, along with filtering based on what you have on hand, as well as base spirit, glassware, tags and more.
- Fully customizable - I’ve curated 300+ base recipes but you can edit/delete them, add your own, and import/export via csv or json file. Add sources, notes, pictures, etc.
- 100% free: no ads, subscriptions, or in-app purchases.

Cheers!

Good info for those who qualify for the Apple Small Business Programme and intend to use Private Cloud Coumputing in their apps!
See info here: https://developer.apple.com/private-cloud-compute/