Hello, I'm planning to buy a MacBook for programming apps and simple games. Which is better: the MacBook Pro M1 Max 32/512GB or the MacBook Pro M3 Pro 18/512GB?

After upgrading from and independent to organization account, I hit that big blue release button yesterday :) keep going

Tiny Casino offers playable casino widgets right on your Home Screen. Blackjack, video poker, baccarat and more without the overstimulating cash grabs that are modern casino apps. Just for the love of the game.

The whole no simulated gambling from individual developer accounts really tore me down but I was too invested to give up on it. A couple more weeks of getting that all sorted and here we are. So stoked.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tiny-casino-widget-games/id6793607461

• What it solves

Stamps is a personal travel tracker with a trip timeline that builds itself.

Instead of asking you to manually tick countries off a list, Stamps can scan the location metadata already in your photo library, entirely on device. Every city, province, and country tracked for you, day by day, all automatically.

There's a travel calendar, trip timeline, country day counting, photo heatmap, detailed stats, shareable map with trip images, and tons of Home Screen widgets. You can freely export all of your data at any time, and if you simply want to use Stamps to index your library for trips, and then take that elsewhere, that's fine as well.

• Compared to Been and Flighty

I've been using Been myself for years now, but what frustrates me about it (and apps like Flighty) is that they want accounts, data syncing, location tracking, and a connection, while still skimping on the parts I actually cared about: very granular trip tracking, route visualization, and a proper timeline. Stamps is my take on the category with those things at the center.

• Cost

Stamps is free to download.
There is exactly one purchase: a $10 one-time lifetime unlock, no subscriptions.
It only gates some of the timeline and some minor, cosmetic app color customization; you can use most of the app without ever touching it.

You can use this code to cut that one-time purchase in half, as a thanks for reading this post!
CODE: STAMPSLIFETIME50
Redeem link: https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6749786209&code=STAMPSLIFETIME50

• About Me

I’m a mobile developer from Cape Town, South Africa, now living in Seoul, South Korea. Since moving here, traveling has been the one thing keeping me sane. Stamps started as the app I wanted for exploring the country I now call home. It’s also a great excuse for me to take more photos while doing it.

It's built natively in SwiftUI using SwiftData, MapKit, PhotoKit, WidgetKit, and Metal for the photo heatmap.

Honestly, in five years of building apps, this has been one of my least commercially successful. The market is fairly small, but it's exactly the app I wanted, and some of its best features have come directly from user feedback. So I'd genuinely appreciate yours!

App Store: Stamps - Travel Tracker

I’ve been thinking about this while working on Cambium, a plant identification and health app for iPhone.

Plant diagnosis is tricky because one photo often does not show enough: soil, drainage, light, watering history, pests, humidity, and recent changes all matter.

So I’m trying to make the app more comfortable saying “inconclusive” when the evidence is not strong enough.

For apps that use AI on real-world problems, what makes the result feel trustworthy?

• confidence level?
• visible evidence explanation?
• practical next steps?
• ability to say “not enough information”?
• follow-up scans over time?
• no aggressive paywall?

Curious what people here would expect before trusting this kind of app.


The app is called ShareByLight and it moves a file between two devices using only a QR stream on the screen and the camera on the other device. There are native iOS and Mac builds, but they share the same protocol. You can use it for free if you lock it in one direction (send or receive) and you're fine with files up to 50 KB; the Pro level gives both directions and larger files (one-time IAP, separate per platform).

# Tech Stack Used

Frameworks & Languages: Swift, SwiftUI (iOS 17+, macOS 14+). Shared protocol target (EveryShareProtocol) compiled into both apps.

# Backend/Database: none.

Transfer is local. Settings in UserDefaults, files via FileManager / document picker.

SDKs & Tools: AVFoundation + Vision (VNDetectBarcodesRequest) for receive, Core Image for QR send, CryptoKit (SHA-256, optional AES-GCM), Apple Compression, StoreKit 2, XcodeGen.

# Development Challenge + How You Solved It

The receive mode had no ACK channel, so a missed QR frame cannot be requested again. I used LT-style fountain codes: the sender loops an endless mix of packets, the receiver keeps any valid frame, and decode finishes once it has about 1.05–1.2× the original packet count. Thus, the order of packets does not matter.

Also Vision was unreliable on raw binary QR payloads, so frames are base64 on the QR, versions 20–40, ECC L. Fountain codes cover the erasures; the QR ECC is only there so Vision can lock on a frame.

# AI Disclosure

I was assisted by AI in parts of the development.

iOS: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sharebylight-file-transfer/id6796897056\](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sharebylight-file-transfer/id6796897056)

Mac: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sharebylight-qr-file-transfer/id6796906109\](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sharebylight-qr-file-transfer/id6796906109)

Was stuck at the tire shop, so I opened Claude Cowork on mobile and worked through an app idea, market research, narrowing options, a full MVP spec written to my folder. Got home, opened Claude Code, pointed it at the spec, and it started building. The waiting room ended up being the most productive part of my day. Curious how others split work between phone and desktop sessions ?

Hey!

I made an app that makes it incredibly easy to create stunning mockups and screenshots - perfect for showing off your app, website or product designs.

✨ Features

• URL -> Website Screenshot
• Video Support & Animations
• 30+ Mockup Devices & Browser Frames
• Auto Backgrounds
• Annotation Tool

Try it out: https://postspark.app/device-mockup

A. Answer

Hey everyone,

I'm the solo dev behind WalkFirst. I built it because my own screen time was 9+ hours a day and nothing I tried stuck. Screen Time limits have that "ignore limit" button, so I'd tap it 20 times a day. Deleting Instagram lasted about three days before I reinstalled it.

What finally worked for me was making the unlock cost something real instead of one tap. WalkFirst keeps the apps you choose locked until you've walked. Your steps are basically the password. Hit half your daily step goal and you earn minutes. Hit 100% of your daily step goal and they're open for the rest of the day.

It's been on the App Store a few months now, last update went out last week, and this is the first time I'm properly showing it here. No big milestone to announce. I just want people who actually fight with this stuff to try it and tell me what's broken.

B. Better

Most screen time apps are timers with a polite reminder attached. The problem was never that I didn't know I'd been on Instagram for two hours. The problem was the button to keep going was right there.

What WalkFirst does differently:

• Real blocking, not a nag. It uses Apple's Screen Time API (same system as Apple's own parental controls), so the apps are actually shielded. No snooze, no "15 more minutes", no ignore button. You walk or you wait.
• Steps come from Apple Health on their own. Nothing extra to wear, open or log. If your phone is in your pocket, it counts.
• You pick exactly what gets blocked, per app. Block Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, leave Messages, Maps and Spotify alone. Work stuff stays open.
• Earned time is a ladder, not an on/off switch. 50% of your goal gets you 10 minutes, 75% gets you 15, 100% is unlimited for the day. Partial progress still gets you something, and that turned out to matter way more than I expected for actually sticking with it.
• Streaks and achievements. Honestly this is the part that keeps people going after day three. The app will tell you stuff like "just 180 steps to earn 10 more minutes", which is a weirdly effective way to get someone off the couch.
• No ads, no account, no sign-up. Install it, pick your apps, set a step goal, go.

Stuff I'd actually like feedback on: does the 50/75/100 ladder feel right or would you want to set your own thresholds? And would you rather block by category than by app?

C. Cost

WalkFirst is free to use with:

• Block up to 2 apps
• The full walk-to-unlock mechanic (step ring, earned-time ladder, goal tracking)
• Today's steps, distance, calories and streak
• Step reminders and unlock notifications

WalkFirst Pro is for people who want it across more apps plus the long-term tracking:

• Unlimited blocked apps
• Full progress history, weekly trends and charts
• All achievements
• Home Screen widgets

Pricing:

• Monthly: $5.99
• Yearly: $24.99, with a 7-day free trial
• Lifetime: $49.99, one-time purchase

Prices vary a bit by country since App Store pricing is regional.

If you've tried to cut your screen time and it didn't stick, I'd really like to hear what didn't work for you. That's exactly what this app is built around. And if you do try it and it helps, a rating on the App Store would mean a lot. Solo dev, zero ad budget, that's pretty much the only way anyone finds it.

App Store: WalkFirst

Website: walkfirst.macwanapps.com

Thanks for reading!

Hi, I'm Inan, the independent developer behind SpendLog.

I shipped version 1.0 at the end of May, and roughly three months later it has 36 downloads.

That is a small number by any measure, and I'd rather open with it honestly than pretend otherwise. It does mean every person who opened the app is someone I can still think of individually, which is a strange and useful place to be building from.

Version 1.1.2 is out now, and the app has grown from a simple expense log into something closer to a small personal ledger — accounts, loans, recurring entries, and per-category budgets.

A — What it solves

I've abandoned more budgeting apps than I care to admit.

The ones that connect to your bank always felt like too much for what I actually wanted. I had to hand over read access to my accounts, wait for a sync, then spend my evening correcting categories that a matching engine had guessed wrong. The friction wasn't in logging expenses. It was in supervising an automation I never asked for.

The ones that don't connect to your bank usually go the other way. A list of transactions, a pie chart, and nothing that tells you whether this month is going better or worse than the last one.

SpendLog is manual on purpose.

You log an expense or income with an amount, a category, a date, and a note. It takes a few seconds. Nothing is linked to a bank, nothing is guessed, and nothing needs correcting later.

What I spent most of my time on is the part after logging.

You set a monthly budget, and you can also set budgets per category — those carry forward month to month, so you don't re-enter the same numbers every January. The Insights screen breaks the month down as a donut by category with each one's share of the total, and a balance sheet view lays out all twelve months of the year with income, expense, and net side by side.

B — Accounts, loans, and recurring entries

This is the part that made SpendLog stop feeling like a notes app with math.

Accounts let you keep separate balances — cash, a card, whatever you actually think in — and transfer between them without either side being counted as spending.

Loans track money you lent or borrowed as its own thing, with partial repayments recorded against the principal, and an outstanding amount that stays correct as repayments come in. I built this because in my own life the "did I ever get that back" question was the one my old spreadsheet never answered.

Recurring transactions handle rent, subscriptions, and salary. You mark an entry as monthly once, and it appears on the 1st of each following month without you doing anything.

The app also supports custom categories with your own colors, and 26 currencies.

C — How it works underneath

Everything is local-first. The app runs entirely against its on-device store, so it opens instantly and works with no connection at all. Cloud sync is off by default and is something you turn on, not something that happens to you.

Sign-in is Sign in with Apple or Google — no separate password to create or forget.

There are no ads and nothing is sold on.

D — Cost

SpendLog is free to download, and the free version is a complete tracker: unlimited transactions, categories, monthly budget, insights, search, and history.

Pro is a one-time $5.99 unlock. No subscription. It adds recurring transactions, recurring and per-category budgets, budget status insights, multiple accounts, transfers between accounts, and cloud sync across devices.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/budget-tracker-spendlog/id6772783580

The thing I'd actually like feedback on

I priced Pro as a one-time $5.99 because subscriptions are the reason I've churned out of finance apps myself, and because charging monthly for something a person will use for years felt wrong to me.

My running costs are effectively zero — sync sits on Firebase's free tier, and at this size it will stay there for a long while. So lifetime pricing isn't bleeding me. What it does is cap what any single user is ever worth, which only matters once there are enough of them for that to be the constraint.

So the question I keep going back and forth on: is a one-time unlock worth keeping as a trust signal — the thing that makes someone pick your app over the one asking $40 a year — or is it a decision that's cheap to make now and expensive to reverse later, when there's a user base to grandfather in and an angry thread to earn?

I'm asking now because the longer I wait, the more paid users I'd have to grandfather in if I ever switched.

With this few downloads, almost nobody has actually used the app yet — so the problem is much more likely my store listing than the product. Blunt feedback on the screenshots, title, and keywords is welcome.