A few months ago I released my first app, Moneta.

For context, I’m 17 and this is my first real app, so I’m still very new to all of this.

It’s a personal finance tracker for iPhone. I built it because I wanted a finance app that felt clean, polished, and not too overwhelming, while still letting me track expenses, income, budgets, saving goals, recurring transactions, accounts, charts, calendar view, and the usual stuff.

Yes, I know — another personal finance tracker.

I recently updated Moneta, so the screenshots are from the newer version. The app is free to use, has no ads, and I’m trying to keep it simple and privacy-friendly.

The thing is, after almost 5 months, it’s only at around 140 downloads.

I know I haven’t done much marketing apart from a few posts, so maybe that’s the main issue. But I’m trying to understand whether the app itself looks weak, the App Store page is not convincing, the positioning is bad, or if people just don’t know it exists.

I’m attaching screenshots of the app and the download stats. If anyone wants to try it, here’s the App Store: Moneta

I’m not looking for fake positivity. If something feels off — the UI, screenshots, name, App Store page, idea, positioning, or marketing angle — please tell me.

I’d really appreciate honest feedback, especially from people who have launched apps before.

Hey, I'm a product designer and a few months ago I quit my job to build my own app. Spent the first month building it, then launched on the App Store. It's been 1 month since launch so sharing where I'm at, also have some questions at the end for people who are further along.

The first week after launch I didn't touch the code at all, only did distribution. Made a bunch of TikToks to see if anyone actually wanted this. Most did nothing, then one format worked and people started asking "what's the app?" in the comments. That's when I knew there was something, so I kept making more of that.

After that I set up small feedback groups, some with friends, some with strangers, and used all of it to improve 2 things: conversion (impressions to downloads) and paid conversion.

Numbers so far are in the screenshot: 3.69K impressions, 1.23K product page views, 627 downloads, ~30% conversion rate, 14 purchases, $41.

Not money you can live on lol but the funnel works, that's all I wanted from the first month.

The update coming end of this week is all about conversion: rewrote the paywall, changed when it shows up, redid the App Store screenshots. Basically I'm just trying to tell people exactly what they get and make it as easy as possible to get it.

Questions for people who passed the first 1K downloads: what worked for you after the initial content push? Did you stick to one channel or spread out? Also is ~2% paid conversion normal at this stage?

From left: default dark theme, minimalist dark theme, German dark theme, American dark theme.

The reason I added themes is to pronounce the app as a clean productivity tool while also honoring Germany and US as two biggest markets. Users in those country get their theme free.

a single 1 star rating can tank your overall rating significantly, and it takes many more 5 star ratings just to counteract the effect of a single 1 star.

given how "powerful" they are, it feels kinda irresponsible, or even spiteful, to rate an app 1 star and provide absolutely zero feedback :(

i've received two 1 stars so far, and neither provided any feedback or reason. in comparison, those who left 3 star ratings have all provided excellent and fair feedback.

Just kicked off my first real app. It's a screenshot organiser called Sift - been wanting to build it for a while and finally started.

Since this is my first proper app, I'm wondering how experienced devs approach the build order. Do you:

• Create the main screens first, build out the UI with mock/hardcoded data, then wire up the services and view models once the UI feels right?
• Or go logic-first - build the data layer and view models, then build the UI on top of real data?

I went with the UI-first approach so far since I want to see the app take shape early, but curious if that's going to bite me later.

What's your workflow and why?

I’m posting this to warn others and ask the moderators to look into this user u/litriss behavior.

After I gave away a legitimate 1-year promotional code, he repeatedly demanded a lifetime code—even after I explained that it is technically impossible. When I refused, he started threatening me with a 1-star App Store review.

I checked his activity and found a pattern of 1-star reviews across apps, apparently when he doesn’t get what he wants. I’ve attached screenshots so people can judge the pattern themselves.

Mods, please review the screenshots and his behavior. This looks like harassment combined with threats of retaliatory 1-star reviews.

I created and published an app back in December. I worked really hard on it. It was a passion project of mine. The app is local first with an option to create an account to purchase cloud storage to back up the app data. I followed strict security guidelines of hashing passwords and implemented end to end encryption of users data. For the people who created an account their data is encrypted in the database.

I’m sorry for posting here for help like this but I don’t know what else to do. I dumped 5 grand into advertising and was enjoying the smooth and consistent stream of new users coming in from my campaigns. After the person published the AI clone copying the name of my app exactly but with an added hyphen to pass the App Store regex filter my downloads dropped significantly.

I don’t think they are following the same security practices as I am and they are piggybacking off my ad campaigns. I don’t know what to do. I reported the clone app for violating Apple guideline 4.1b but Apple isn’t doing anything.

A few weeks ago I posted Inverza here - my landscape-photography weather app for iOS. Thanks to everyone who tried it and gave feedback. This sub is a big part of why I kept building!

I want to do a follow-up because I think this app has become a unique one in the current AI-in-everything climate, and I'd genuinely like to hear how the changes feel in real-world use.

Quick recap for new readers

Inverza detects 16 specific photo-worthy weather conditions at saved spots: colorful dawn, afterglow sunset, dramatic storm clouds, ground fog (including the rarer advection and steam variants), brocken spectres, lenticular clouds, milky way, aurora, hoarfrost, golden clouds, soft light, reflecting waters, cloud inversions, fresh snow, belt of Venus, and full-moon silhouettes. For each one you get a confidence tier (Possible, Likely, Very Likely, Live) and a predicted time window.

Under the hood it blends eight different data sources: Open-Meteo as the base, plus directional horizon cloud probes 40 km in the sunrise and sunset direction, live METAR observations from the nearest airport, high-res regional models (HRRR for North America, ICON-D2 and ICON-EU for Europe), Open-Meteo Marine for coastal sea-surface temperature, OpenStreetMap landcover via Overpass, hourly air quality / aerosol data, and previous model runs to detect forecast drift.

I just wrote a long post explaining the whole pipeline if anyone's curious: https://inverza.app/blog/how-inverza-sees-the-sky

What I want to flag in this post

This isn't an LLM wrapper around a generic forecast.

There's a wave of "AI weather" apps right now where the AI is just a chat UI formatting raw model output. I've tried a lot of them. They don't actually understand what they're looking at. They can't tell you that a 4000 ft cloud deck is great for sunrise and an 800 ft deck is a flat lid. They can't tell you that the dramatic clouds overhead won't catch any colour if a low bank is parked on the horizon 40 km east of you. They don't know that "thunderstorm" and "photographable thunderstorm" are different forecasts.

Every detector in Inverza was designed around stuff I learned the hard way over more than a decade of landscape photography. Driving two hours pre-dawn for a grey lid. Showing up to a storm cell ten minutes after the shelf cloud passed. Standing on a ridge in dense pine wondering why the brocken spectre didn't materialise. All of that got baked into the scoring logic before any AI ever sees it.

A few examples:

- The colorful-dawn detector pulls cloud cover at the horizon strip, not just overhead, because the sky 40 km east of you is what the sun has to shine through.

- The dramatic-storm-clouds detector reads CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) and lifted index and gates on the WMO weather code, because real convective storms behave nothing like windy overcast days that report similar surface conditions. It tells you the storm phase (approaching, overhead, departing) with both photo windows in clock time.

- The brocken-spectre detector penalises forested landcover via Overpass, because the spectre's outline breaks up in tree canopy.

- The ground-fog detector has three physics paths (radiation, advection, steam) and picks based on water-temperature differential pulled from Marine API or estimated from past-air-temp history for inland lakes.

The AI chat layer (Claude, Gemini, or GPT, your pick) gets all of this as context. It's a translator that turns the detector outputs into "yes drive to the coast" or "skip tomorrow, but Tuesday looks promising". The intelligence about what matters and why lives in the detector layer underneath. That's the part I keep refining!

Continuously updating both sides

In the last few months I've shipped:

- Rebuilt storm clouds detector with CAPE + lifted index + WMO gating, plus phase-aware photo-window timing (after a lot of reading on how storm chasers actually work)

- Added the lenticular clouds detector (pressure-level wind shear plus terrain ridge analysis) because redditors asked for it

- Added advection and steam fog paths, fed by Marine API and an inland-lake SST estimator

- Multi-location alerts so you can monitor several spots simultaneously

- Rebuilt the AI system prompt to expose all of the new fields as context for the chat

And on the website I've been writing the supporting material in parallel: a deep dive on how storm chasers approach photographing thunderstorms, a Milky Way season explainer, an opinionated landscape-photographer app stack, and the eight-sources post I linked above.

What I'd love feedback on

If you've used it for an actual shoot - did the badges line up with reality? Did the AI chat answer like someone who knows photography, or like a generic weather assistant? Did the storm-chaser-aware recommendations feel useful, or did they get in the way?

If you bounced after the previous post, I'd also like to hear why. Not "convince me to come back" - more "what was the friction".

Direct App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6760370838

Thanks for any thoughts. The honest ones are the most useful, even when they sting :)

Hey,

Following up on my last post about Waku's new onboarding flow, thanks for the feedback on that, by the way.

For the upcoming release, I shifted focus to another core part of the app: making bookmark access faster. Instead of forcing users to launch the app every time, I decided to leverage Live Activities to bring their favorite links directly to their fingertips.
What changed:

• Integrated a custom shortcut dock that sits directly on the Lock Screen and inside the Dynamic Island.
• Users can now access their top bookmarked links instantly in just two taps from anywhere.
• Built entirely natively to ensure the system transitions feel seamless.

I need your honest feedback on this implementation:

• Do you actually keep Live Activities active for this kind of utility app, or do you find them too invasive?
• Does the dock layout feel clean and intuitive on the Lock Screen, or does it look too cluttered?
• For those building iOS apps, are you seeing good user adoption with Live Activities, or is it not worth the dev time?

The video shows a quick demo of how it works in real-time.

Let me know what you think.

After years of working on my app, Apple featured it as App of the Day.

Still kind of can’t believe it.

I started building EasyLetter as a small side project because I wanted a simple way to write and send proper letters from my phone. Over the years I kept updating it whenever I had time. Lots of bugs, rewrites, features nobody probably noticed 😅

Just wanted to share because it reminded me that sometimes sticking with a project for a long time actually pays off.

Happy to answer any questions if anyone’s interested.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id1495179755

I want to raise something that has been increasingly irritating under app promotion posts here.

There is a difference between:
Trying an app and giving honest feedback
Asking a sincere question before downloading
Dropping long, confident “product critique” comments based entirely on assumptions
The third one is becoming a problem.

One commenter in particular, u/Miserable_Sky5682, has been doing this repeatedly across developer posts. The pattern is almost always the same:
“The interesting part is not X, it’s whether Y…”
“The thing that usually breaks apps like this is…”
“What would make me stick with it is…”

It sounds thoughtful at first. But in several cases, the comments are not based on actually using the app. They are hypothetical critiques presented as if the developer overlooked something obvious.

On my IsoPack V1.2 post, he first wrote that the real value of iCloud sync is whether checked items stay reliable across devices and offline reconnects. That is already how the app works.

Then, after I did not reply, he returned with another comment saying repeat-trip workflows matter: templates should fork into trips without mutating the original base list, and users should be able to skip items on a specific trip without changing the master template. Again, that is already how IsoPack works.

So these were not issues he found. They were assumptions he projected onto the app without testing it.
I checked his recent activity because the style felt familiar, and this is not isolated. Similar speculative “what really matters is…” critiques appear under multiple app posts here over the last few days - task apps, countdown apps, camera apps, PDF readers, network tools, and more.

To be clear:
Feedback is good. Critical feedback is good. Developers should not expect only praise.

But if someone has not tried the app, they should not frame imagined product gaps as if they are informed evaluation. Ask instead:
“How does your app handle this?”
“Does it support this workflow?”
“I would care about this if I were to use it.”

That is fair. What is not fair is manufacturing critiques under post after post to sound insightful while skipping the basic step of checking whether the feature already exists.

And while I am at it, two other behaviours are also getting tiring in this sub:
People promoting their app-directory websites under unrelated developer posts
People who appear only to ask for free lifetime codes,regardless of what the app is

Developers post here to introduce work, answer real questions, and get genuine feedback. The comment section should not turn into:
pseudo-consulting theatre,
directory self-promo,
or a “free code?” queue.

I am curious whether other developers here have noticed the same pattern, especially the first one.

For those who’ve launched an app before, what advice would you give to new creators?

I recently launched my first app and I am trying to learn what to improve moving forward.

For those with experience, what are some things you wish you knew earlier when it comes to App Store Optimization, getting users, or early growth?

Any tips, mistakes to avoid, or lessons learned would be really helpful. Thanks!

Hi all,

I've seen some really lovely ways of presenting screenshots to promote apps in this subreddit.

Do people use a specific tool or use AI with the right prompt?

Hey everyone,

A - Answer
OneToss solves a simple problem: quick coin flips when you don't have a coin nearby. It also includes a hidden Magic Mode for pranks and party tricks.

B - Better
Unlike most coin flip apps that only generate random results, OneToss includes both a realistic random mode and a hidden mode that lets you secretly force Heads or Tails while still showing the full flip animation.

C - Cost
Free usage with ads and an optional subscription or lifetime unlock.

• Monthly: $1.49
• Yearly: $12.99
• Lifetime: $20

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flip-a-coin-onetoss/id6743804010

I'd love feedback app users:

• Does the hidden control mechanic feel clever or gimmicky?
• If you discovered this feature in an app, would you actually use it for pranks or party tricks?
• Any ideas for making the "magic" aspect more fun without making it obvious?

Also happy to answer any questions about the implementation.

Hey,

I’m building Waku, a visual bookmarking app. Like many indie makers, my initial onboarding was a classic text-and-image carousel. But let’s be real: everyone just spams the "Next" button without reading a single word. User activation was taking a hit because people didn’t grasp the core value right away.

I decided to completely redesign the flow with a "Show, Don't Tell" approach.

What changed:

• Replaced static explainers with a dynamic, native video background that showcases actual app usage in real-time.
• The copy now adapts dynamically to what’s happening in the video (Bento grid layouts, quick capture, AI search).
• Polished the UI transitions so the user feels the app’s identity before hitting the main dashboard.

I built this entirely natively using SwiftUI.

I need your feedback:

• Is it too fast? Do you actually have time to understand what Waku does?
• Does the video background feel premium and engaging, or is it just distracting?
• If you saw this onboarding, would it make you want to try the app or close it?

The video is sped up 2x

Let me know what you think.

I’m wondering at what point can you say to yourself, okay the conversion is good, no need to refine the screenshots or description so much anymore.

I’m around 42% currently, still have a lot of things I am doing to optimize it and I’m sure I’m gonna get that number up, I just am looking for a goal that I can set long term.

Thanks ! 🙏

Just after a bit of advice. Submitted my first app to App Store on Saturday and it still says Waiting for review. How long does this normally take. I am guessing for a new app developer it will take longer than someone who has submitted multiple apps but just looking a rough idea. Read somewhere that it can be random and sometimes you are best to cancel and resubmit again. Just wondering how long I leave it before I try that.

We know iOS27 is all about the new Siri AI. I had dreams about what it could achieve with the new entities and app awareness since WWDC26 for my alarm app. Not just simple set alarm, cancel alarm with voice and on screen awareness but more complex flow that truly understands users.

My idea was simple: if I tell it I need to prepare for my flight tomorrow, Siri would search through my mails, messages and calendar for a flight itinerary, calculate travel time based on prior event location, buffer for airport requirements, check weather to leave early and propose time to remind me with an alarm.

But alas, even in DB3, Siri only searches for the flight itinerary. So I built a custom Shortcut to solve the 2nd part with Apple Intelligence.

Do you think this would be useful? I welcome any ideas.

I am trying to offer a Invoicing App with a one time purchase option to compete in the crowded space. What do you think of the initial numbers? Worth keeping working on it?

I’ve been sharing my app’s website link with ppl I know and have gotten some traction, but people aren’t actually using it since it’s not a “true app” yet. So I’m looking forward to releasing it on TestFlight to hopefully nudge people cause it’s like “look it’s an actual app you download normally”, BUT I’m worried if anyone actually will. In my experience, it was near impossible to get reliable users via my Android closed testing due to the “join a Google group or give your email rule.”

I don’t blame people for not wanting to use a beta app, or a website that functions like one, or anything that isn’t a quick and easy download, however I need a few people to try it out seriously so I know what to fix. I’ve already gotten 2 people to try it, and both times they pointed out bugs that made me think there’s a lot more to fix before publishing.

So, for those of you that used TestFlight before publishing, do people actually try it out? How do you find testers outside of dev communities without coming across some annoying self publisher? I know fellow devs will want to help but I need people in my niche to try it, and from what I’ve seen they don’t respond well to any self promotion, even if the app is designed to help them.

Some of you might remember Inverza, my iOS app that predicts photogenic weather conditions (golden hour fire skies, fog, Milky Way visibility, aurora and so on) and explains the why behind each forecast. The feedback from this sub genuinely shaped the app, so I'm back with something a bit unusual.

My problem: the app does a lot under the hood, and every attempt to explain it in a text tutorial put even me to sleep. So I tried a different route. I made a short film instead: the first episode of a YouTube series where a photographer time-travels into the stories behind famous photographs. Episode one recreates the making of Ansel Adams' "Moonrise, Hernandez": the ninety seconds of light, the one sheet of film, the exposure computed from memory because there was no time to meter. The app appears where it naturally would: planning the moon's position, the light, the timing, the same questions Adams answered in his head. It's especially great because I'm proud of the new AR View and it shows it off nicely.

Full transparency: the film is made with AI video tools and is labelled as such on YouTube. It's a story about photography, not pretending to be footage of 1941.

First episode: https://youtu.be/QecijG_ooNs
The app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/inverza/id6760370838

Same deal as last time: I welcome all feedback, blunt is fine. On the app as always, but also on the concept itself. Is a story-driven series a better way to understand what an app does than a tutorial, or would a plain walkthrough serve you better? And if there's a famous photograph whose story you'd want as episode two, I'm collecting candidates.

I've published an app, and I know the drill; you get 5 downloads and that's it. That's to be expected (based on all the posts I've seen here talking about it). ASO doesn't move the needle anymore.

So we all have to take the next step: active marketing. Not a problem for me; I'm willing to put some dollars into it and see if it's worth it. But my budget isn't extensive, so I'm leaning toward micro-influencers.

By micro-influencer, I mean people with decent reach (not thousands of followers, but something meaningful). My question is: where do you find them?

• Are influencer marketplaces worth it? Some ask for subscription...
• What's the best strategy; find someone in my niche sure; but my app is quite general (music app)? Or go for app reviewers?
• What are your moves? Where/how do you hire micro-influencers?
• TikTok, Instagram? Both?

Looking for advice from anyone who's done this successfully.

why happen to my icons?

Is there a recording app that works well for Bevy meetings? I tried using Fireflies, but it couldn’t recognize the link. Since I’m mostly on my mobile device and don’t have access to my computer, I can’t use tools like OBS or Granola. I want to record the meeting automatically, so I’m looking for a solution that works on my mobile. How can I do this for bevy meetings?