r/IPhoneApps • • Jul 16 '26

Mod Post An update on self-promotion

24 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

When we added the Developer flair, the goal was to give indie devs a way to share what they're building. We genuinely wanted to support people making cool apps.

But over the past while, it's turned into something else. The sub has filled up with low-effort promo posts, a few lines and a link, from people who drop their app and are never seen again. That's not what this community is for. r/iPhoneApps is meant to be a place for real discussion and value, not a free billboard.

So, effective today, we're removing the Developer flair.

To be clear about what this means going forward:

You can't just show up, promote your app, and ghost the community. Posts that are purely "here's my app, go download it" will be removed.

If you're an active member who actually contributes here, joining discussions, helping people, giving feedback, then mentioning your app in that context is completely fine. Value first, promotion second.

We'd much rather have devs who are part of the community than a feed full of ads. This keeps the sub worth being in for everyone.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping keep this place good.

— The mod team


r/IPhoneApps • • 13m ago

Discussion [iOS][$44.99->Free LifeTime]xDesk Pro: it unlocks inside the app as you use it (READ)

• Upvotes

How to get xDesk Pro for free (link: xDesk-AppStore)

  1. Download xDesk
  2. Use it as you normally would
  3. Once you reach 300 points (about 5 days of use), xDesk Pro unlocks for free right inside the app

⚠️ No need to ask in the comments or in chat. Everything happens automatically inside the app.

If you don’t want to wait, you can unlock Pro right away for $17.99 (one-time purchase).

Why I changed the system

During the last promotion I got so many requests that my chat was suspended for 24 hours, because the activation links I was sending got flagged as spam. I’m sorry to everyone who missed out.

What bothered me even more was seeing free unlocks claimed and never used, while people who genuinely wanted the app were left empty-handed. This way the reward goes to the people who actually use it.

I hope you find xDesk useful!


r/IPhoneApps • • 16h ago

Discussion An app to stop myself wasting food. It's now on the App Store

2 Upvotes

UK households throw away about £1,000 of food a year for a family of four, according to WRAP. I was definitely part of that.

Tell UseIt what's in your fridge and cupboards, and it suggests recipes that use it up. It checks your allergies and diet on every recipe, and the shopping list only adds what you don't already have.

A few decisions I took on purpose:
One payment, not a subscription. I'm tired of every app costing £5 a month.
No account and no tracking. Everything stays on your phone.
Recipes you can actually make, with a cooking mode, timers and a meal planner.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/useit-smart-kitchen-planner/id6822884553


r/IPhoneApps • • 19h ago

Discussion Apricity: a PDF and EPUB reader for iPhone that sets the pages like a book, so no more pinching and dragging sideways (free, plus a free Premium year for launch)

3 Upvotes

Most PDFs were made for paper, so on a phone you end up zooming in and dragging across every line. I wanted to read them on my iPhone like an ebook.

What it does on iPhone

  • Reflow takes the text out of a PDF and sets it at your size, typeface and spacing, so it reads top to bottom like a book. Page numbers and headers step aside, and paragraphs carry on across page breaks. It also handles right-to-left scripts and vertical Japanese. Original keeps the page as published, recoloured for night or sepia.
  • Read Aloud lights up each word as it reads and keeps going with the screen locked. You can use Apple's voices, or natural English voices that run on the phone itself, with nothing sent anywhere.
  • Notebooks sit right beside each book. Write with your finger, pinch to zoom, choose from 81 kinds of paper, and search your own handwriting.
  • Markup lets you write straight on a PDF's pages without changing the file.
  • Record a lecture while you take notes, then tap your writing to hear that moment.
  • A cozy room: your books on shelves under a desk lamp, 21 wallpapers, and a fire, rain or a forest to listen to while you read.

No account and no ads. Your books and notes stay on your phone, and sync to your iPad goes through your own private iCloud.

What's free

Reading, Reflow, highlights, notes, Markup, notebooks, recording and iCloud sync are free for everyone. Premium (US$14.99 a year) adds Read Aloud, transcripts, Smart Notes, export, more covers and stickers, sounds, the focus timer, room furnishing and your own fonts. Everyone gets 14 days of Premium to start.

Launch offer: a free year of Premium, until 31/10/2026

What it doesn't do

No Kindle or DRM-protected books. The natural voices are English only, Smart Notes needs Apple Intelligence, and the app needs iOS 26.

I'd love to hear about any PDF that Reflow gets wrong (scanned, two columns, another language). I'll be in the comments.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apricity-read-write-focus/id6821031964


r/IPhoneApps • • 17h ago

Discussion GreenFocus: lock the apps that steal your day

Post image
2 Upvotes

Hey everyone 👋

I’m a solo dev GreenFocus because I kept opening Instagram “for 5 minutes” and losing an hour.

What it does:

  • 🔒 App blocking: lock distracting apps while you focus
  • ⏱️ Focus sessions: start a timer and your social apps stay locked until it ends
  • ✅ Habits & streaks: track small daily habits and keep your streak alive
  • 🌿 AI coach (Zen): ask what to improve tomorrow based on your day

The app is free to download and use. If you want more, there’s an optional Premium plan: $11.99/month or $89.99/year.

Launch offer: the first 100 users get Premium yearly for $59.99 instead of $89.99. That’s about $5 a month.

playstore link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hatilasmaximo.greenfocus3&hl=pt_BR&pli=1

👉 greenfocus.app

since I’m building this alone. What’s the one app you can’t stop opening?


r/IPhoneApps • • 23h ago

Discussion Alguna app para ver series en España con IOS???

3 Upvotes

Graciasssssss


r/IPhoneApps • • 1d ago

Discussion Creative Apps

5 Upvotes

Do you guys know creative apps?


r/IPhoneApps • • 2d ago

Help What iOS app would you build in 2027 if your goal was to solve a real problem?

4 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I'm exploring ideas for an iOS app to build in 2027, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I'm not looking to create another generic AI app or a copy of something that already exists. I want to build something that solves a real problem and offers genuine value to its users.

I'd love to know:

  • What problem do you face regularly that existing apps don't solve well?
  • Is there an app you wish existed but haven't found yet?
  • What type of app would you actually be willing to pay for?
  • Are there any everyday tasks you think could be made significantly easier with a well-designed iOS app?

I'm especially interested in ideas for the US, UK, Canada, and other Western markets.


r/IPhoneApps • • 2d ago

Help Any good experiences with "second brain" apps for managing screenshots?

4 Upvotes

Hi everyone. Like everybody else, I have hundreds of screenshots that I compulsively save as a kind of note-taking. Sometimes I sort through them later, but often (once they pile up into the hundreds) I don't. It's a mess. I've got screeshots from courses, events, trips, reading suggestions, podcasts, ideas... you name it.

The thing is, I've tried several times to test some app that would help me with this, without success. That is, an app that automatically organizes notes, lets me extract information, classifies captures...

Recently, too, with the ease of creating new apps, there are new apps of this style by the dozens.

Captr and CaptainShot, for example, are some of the latest I've tried. But they don't quite work: they don't pull out the key ideas and they don't categorize well.

Has anyone found one that actually works? A good IA second brain app for managing screenshots? There seem to be thousands of them, but none that does it well.

Thanks!


r/IPhoneApps • • 2d ago

Help how am i doing?

Post image
0 Upvotes

Just released an app a few days ago, havnt really done any marketing yet. How would yall say im doing so far??


r/IPhoneApps • • 3d ago

Discussion Voice input is great until you’re on a crowded train. Which iPhone apps handle that well?

2 Upvotes

Dictating a reminder in your kitchen makes sense. Announcing 'follow up on the overdue invoice' to a train carriage is a different feature demo.

My take: voice can be the fastest way into an app, but typing shouldn't feel like the emergency exit. Switching between them should keep the same note or task, rather than make you start over. A transcript you can fix before saving matters too.

Which iPhone app gets this right for you? A specific moment where you switch to typing would be more useful than a feature list.

Disclosure: I work on an iOS assistant project, so I'm thinking through this tradeoff.


r/IPhoneApps • • 4d ago

Discussion If a productivity app needs its own weekly cleanup, is it actually saving time?

3 Upvotes

A 'quick capture' app that makes you choose a project, add tags, set a priority and pick a date starts to feel like paperwork with a nicer icon.

My take: an iPhone app should earn its place by reducing decisions, not just organizing them into more menus. A widget that gets one thing out of your head can be more useful than a dashboard with twelve ways to sort it.

But there's a tradeoff: dump everything into one inbox and eventually you've built a second inbox to clean. Too little structure can become work too.

Which iPhone app gets that balance right for you, and what does it let you skip? I'm especially interested in notes, reminders and calendars you keep using after the novelty wears off.

Disclosure: I work on an iOS assistant project, so I have a stake in this question.


r/IPhoneApps • • 4d ago

Discussion Removing iMessage apps

Post image
9 Upvotes

I noticed that there were tons of comments on the app, game pigeon, and how to remove it from iMessage on the AppStore. You basically just go to settings > apps > messages > iMessage apps and then selected game pigeon.


r/IPhoneApps • • 4d ago

Help New Movie App

0 Upvotes

I upgraded to the 18 Pro and it uninstalled all my movie apps, does anyone know any with active App Store links?


r/IPhoneApps • • 5d ago

Help anyone else using capcut for youtube shorts instead of premiere?

2 Upvotes

i've been helping a friend cut clips from a small podcast for youtube shorts. most episodes are around an hour, so we go through the recording, pick out interesting moments and turn them into clips that are usually under a minute. i've been using premiere for the longer edits, but it feels like overkill when all i need is to crop the video vertically, remove pauses, add captions and highlight a few words. i've been testing capcut for the short clips because it seems easier to get those basics done quickly. how well does it handle captions when people talk over each other or use names that might be transcribed incorrectly? also, do you edit each short separately or prepare a batch from the same episode?


r/IPhoneApps • • 5d ago

Discussion Just to share a nice light free long screenshot app

1 Upvotes

I used a small app called Stitch in the past, light and free. Just works. But yesterday I noticed the app no longer available in the AppStore. The version I had was 1.1 and only other thing I know is an email address for customer review mind.stitch zohomail com

Anyway, I started searching for the app and checking if it had been replaced in the appstore with something else. Maybe I downloaded it from different country AppStore. But then I found another app called Stitch - Long ScreenShot on Australia appstore. It is also a nice free app for long sceenshot that works well. There are some more free interesting apps from the same developer.


r/IPhoneApps • • 6d ago

Discussion What's the most ridiculously basic iPhone app you've seen ask for a subscription?

33 Upvotes

I swear every time I look for a simple iOS app these days, there's another subscription.

  • Scan a document? Subscription.
  • Remove duplicate photos? Subscription.
  • Convert a file? Yep, subscription.

Some of these apps barely do anything, yet they still want $5-8 a week.

I don't mind paying for good software, but come on. Not everything needs a monthly or weekly fee.

What's the most ridiculous one you've come across?

Bonus points if it's something the iPhone can already do for free.


r/IPhoneApps • • 5d ago

Help Lovable or Rork ? Building iOS apps

2 Upvotes

I keep hearing about Rork for launching iOS apps, what about lovable? Is it not reliable enough to launch from lovable?


r/IPhoneApps • • 6d ago

I didn’t realize Quick Notes could do this with Safari

Thumbnail
3 Upvotes

r/IPhoneApps • • 8d ago

Discussion Anyone want to talk about vibe coding an iPhone app

4 Upvotes

’m not a professional iOS developer. I used to be an assembler coder back in the 80s but I have been keen to look at iOS apps, I did an online course and built little apps but nothing good.

So over the last six months I coded a list app for myself using AI-assisted coding, and it has somehow turned into a fairly substantial SwiftUI app.

The basic idea is deliberately simple: You make a list, and you put items in a list items can have sub items and I have number of fields in each list item date time descriptions a number a rating

I have not found any type of list that didn't work with those things.

I'm tracking books, tv shows I have a squirrel list for things I put somewhere safe and then lost. I have a list for the F1 schedule this year, It is not a task app, deliberately not a task app but I did add some tasks bits that you can add to a list if you want to but no notifications.

I love tags so I worked really hard on designing how the tags work

I went sort of overboard with tons of features but they are all things I thought would come in handy and they did. I put it on the App Store because I wanted to go through that and because a friend of mine wanted to use it to. This is not an ad , I haven't mentioned the name, and it is free in the App Store anyway.

I wonder if anyone wanted to talk about what worked and what went horribly wrong building a real app this way.


r/IPhoneApps • • 8d ago

Help Hello

0 Upvotes

r/IPhoneApps • • 9d ago

Help Any recommendations app/site where I can watch sports live, specifically football for free?

0 Upvotes

r/IPhoneApps • • 9d ago

Discussion stopwatch on screen to track my screen time

2 Upvotes

Does anyone else lose track of time on their phone? Looking for a live stopwatch overlay app
Every day I end up on my phone far longer than I meant to, without even noticing. And the longer I scroll, the harder it gets to pull myself out. That's not what I want, and it's really hurting my productivity. My intention is always to take a quick break and relax, but social media is designed to keep you hooked so you never want to stop.
I've tried setting alarms, and I've found that the shorter the alarm, the better it works. So I think what I need is a live stopwatch overlay: a small counter in the top-left corner of my screen that doesn't block anything but is impossible to ignore. It would count up from the moment I open an app, showing minutes, seconds, and milliseconds, something like 00:12:47.38, with the last digits flickering by so fast I can literally watch my time slipping away. That constant sense of urgency is what I need to make myself put the phone down.
Ideally, the stopwatch would track each app separately, and I could open the app itself to see my daily stats. The only difference from Apple's built-in Screen Time is that it would give me that pressure in real time, helping me control my scrolling instead of mindlessly wasting my time.
Does anyone else have this problem? Any app recommendations?


r/IPhoneApps • • 9d ago

Discussion What should “live voice changer” actually mean on iPhone?

2 Upvotes

I keep seeing “live” used for different things in iPhone voice changer listings.

Sometimes it means changing a recording after you make it. Sometimes you can hear the effect on your own voice while the app is open. What I need is different. I want to speak in one app and have the changed voice reach the other person in the voice chat at the same time.

I don’t want to jailbreak my iPhone. On a normal iPhone, I haven’t found a software only option that can change the mic in real time and pass that audio into another app. That makes an iPhone feel more limited than a PC for this.

I’m planning a short character improv session with friends, so the cross app part matters. Whether it’s an app or an accessory like Dubbing AI earbuds, I’d want the demo to show what the other person hears during a conversation, rather than just the effect playing back on the same phone.

When something says it does “live voice changing,” what would you want to see in the demo before believing it works in another app?


r/IPhoneApps • • 10d ago

Discussion App Notifications Are Garbage Now

26 Upvotes

Back in the early days, notifications used to be super useful. Someone PM'ed you? You got notified. Someone replied to your comment? Notified. Did your favorite YouTube creator upload something? Notified.

This all stopped sometime around 2016 and now giving an app notification permissions just floods your home screen with spam. I hate this crap so much. Reddit gave me 4 notifications today about random mediocre threads I'm just not interested in. Meanwhile YouTube fails to notify me when one of my favorite subscriptions starts live streaming. The whole notification pipeline has just been flooded with spam to try and entice me into spending screen time on your app.

Such a great and useful mobile phone feature has just been used and abused into dysfunction. Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk.