The ASO tools I tried charge per app or per keyword, which is a lot for a few indie apps, so I built my own and made it open source. It's called AsoBeast.

You import your app by its App Store or Google Play URL, add the phrases you care about, and it checks your position for each one every day, down to 200, in any storefront. One search per keyword also records every competitor on that page, so tracking competitors costs no extra store requests.

What else it does:

• Scores each keyword for popularity and difficulty, and shows the inputs behind the number
• Keeps one keyword field per localization and shows which tracked keywords your title, subtitle and keyword fields miss
• Records title, subtitle and screenshot changes for you and your competitors, and reads the caption text on App Store screenshots
• Syncs reviews and drafts replies, which you copy into App Store Connect yourself
• Comes with an MCP server, so Claude or Cursor can answer "which keywords dropped this week?"

A real example from my own geography game: my title is "Where Am I? GeoGuess Map Quiz". I'm #1 in the US for "geoguess map quiz", which is the title word for word, and outside the top 200 for "map", even though "map" is in the title too. Two and three-word phrases are where a small app can rank.

Popularity is an estimate, because Apple only shows real search numbers inside Apple Ads. If you connect your own Apple Ads API credentials, it uses Apple's numbers for the terms Apple publishes.

Self-hosting is free with Docker Compose and has every feature (AGPL-3.0). If you'd rather not run a server, the hosted version is $10 a month with 7 days free and no card.

GitHub: https://github.com/AsoBeast/asobeast 

Hosted: https://asobeast.com

I released my app 2 weeks ago and made a few updates in ASO. However, my app suddenly disappeared in Apple App Store search since last Friday. Not even exact name search or exact developer name search. And the impression metrics down to floor. I then thought maybe it’s ASO issue and then try to do Apple Ads, but their website is so horrible and badly designed.

The app show up in ads basic but I can’t add ads or even edit regions. It shows on hold with app not eligible for promo or app not in compliant . But no explanation why. And my App Store Connect shows no warnings alert or anything.
And Apple customer support is replying like a machine: you can’t put up ads because your app is not eligible or maybe because app not compliant. Telling me the exact same thing already shown on their fk website like I can’t read!!

I’m wondering if people experienced similar issues and how to deal with it? I feel I’m facing a wall now.
Thanks

Main Event Supercross is an iOS game I’ve been building solo. The goal is easy to pick up hard to master.

I just opened the TestFlight beta with a few of my favorite tracks: https://testflight.apple.com/join/h8V4F8ky

The first beta is about the basics, physics, graphics, and difficulty. I’d especially love to hear how the bike feels through rhythms and whoops and whether the difficulty is too punishing.

I love Moto and just want to make something good for this community. I’ve got lots more planned.

Go rip some laps and let me know what you think🤟🏽🤟🏽

I am working on the next iteration of my app, Aura, and I feel the current screenshots don't clearly communicate the benefits. They were talking about the features and not how the app helps users. Does the copy and design inspire confidence?

Hi members

Here is a 11 years exp ios dev from India.

If anyone is hiring. Do let me know. Looking for an opportunity

I’ve been working on a side project called Exhibit A, an image quiz app focused on cinema, art history, and cultural trivia. Each Case File gives you 4 photo clues to solve the case.

I'm curating and publishing the weekly cases via a Dashboard that manages the clues and the compositing. Accept Notifications to be reminded when there's a new Case to solve.

I'd love for a few trivia fans or pub quizzers to give it a test run and let me know; are the Cases too difficult, too easy, or just right?

It’s completely free on both. Here is the App Store link.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/exhibit-a-cultural-quiz/id6789652661

Appreciate any honest feedback!

I'm building Cernidia for iPhone and Apple Watch to make sleep and recovery signals easier to use in everyday decisions.

I'd appreciate feedback on this sleep screen: it puts a score above sleep duration, efficiency and a saved sleep schedule. Would you lead with the score, or move the recorded information above it? I'm trying to make estimates and user-set plans easy to distinguish.

iOS 18+, English interface. I'm the developer: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6816678341

I have been trying to complete my enrollment into the apple developer program but I do not know why I have not received the verification code to my work email address? I have tried many times and the email address contains our domain.

Anyone encountered this type of issue before?

I'm an independent developer based in Egypt. I publish a free game on the App Store that generates some revenue through ads. I don't have a registered company.

Apple requires me to declare whether I'm a trader or non-trader under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) to make my game available in the EU.

Based on these circumstances, would I be considered a trader or a non-trader? Has anyone in a similar situation gone through this process with Apple?

Thank you!

So in a previous update I changed my app's name to test some things, recently I went to make an update to my app and wanted to change the name of my app back but I noticed that it was taken.

I went to the app store and took a look and someone copied my app LOL.

Is there anything I can do about this or is it fair game, it seems like he's put my entire app through claude and made his own version. I don't really care about that I just want to use my app's name. It is a very generic name so idk. My app makes nothing I didn't think anyone would copy it but here we are.

Mine: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/pedometer-step-counter-widget/id6783677791

His: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pedometer-step-counter-widget/id6822166433

Context: i m testing my app on iPhone Duo simulator with Xcode 27.1, when i tried to capture screenshot in partially open and fully open mode, the captured screenshot always saved as black. capture with Closed mode is ok. anyone know if that is an issue with Xcode or something wrong at my local dev only?

Hey everyone! I’m building Cacha, an app that keeps your gift cards in one place so they’re easier to find and use.
You can scan or manually add gift cards, save expiry dates, and display your card’s barcode at checkout. It also includes expiry reminders to help you remember cards before they expire.
I’m looking for iPhone and iPad testers, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, to try the beta and share honest feedback.
It would help to know:
Is adding a card straightforward?

Does the barcode scan successfully at checkout?

Do expiry reminders work as expected?

Have you found any bugs or confusing screens?

Try the beta through Apple TestFlight:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/FGcdsNNV
Leave feedback:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQaVTU-5oo_PIf1CsvL_DPOfrSl2IRDjfCZazalAa1b8YDlw/viewform
Website:
https://getcacha.com
You’re also welcome to leave feedback or questions in the comments. Please don’t share gift card numbers, PINs, or barcodes publicly.
Thanks for helping me improve Cacha!

Hey everyone! 👋

I'm an indie iOS developer and recently started running Apple Search Ads for my apps.

I'm still learning how to optimise campaigns, choose the right keywords, and get more downloads without wasting money.

Is anyone here experienced with Apple Ads and willing to share some advice?

I'd really appreciate some guidance from someone who's already had success with it.

Thanks in advance! 🙌

The iPhone Duo comes out on Friday! Today I submitted my update to adapt my apps for the Duo; I hope Apple doesn't take too long to approve it.

If you have an app on the App Store or Google Play, this is for you.

On every app I built, one thing was always hard: getting found in search. If nobody finds your app, nobody downloads it.

The tools for this cost a lot, and most of them charge per app. So I built my own. It's called ASOScan.

What it does:

• It finds the words people search for, and shows how often they're searched and how hard they are to rank for
• It checks your rank for each word every day, down to place 200, on the App Store and Google Play
• It works inside ChatGPT, Claude and Cursor, so you can just ask "how is my app ranking?"
• It writes your app's page in other languages and drafts replies to your reviews
• It shows how often AI assistants recommend your app

The screenshot is Spotify in ASOScan, with real data from this week.

So far, about 80 people have signed up, and my first customer is paying. Small numbers, but they're real.

Here it is: ASOScan. You can try it for 7 days without a card. After that it starts at $15 a month.

Want to see it work on your own app? Drop your App Store or Google Play link in the comments. I'll reply with the first keyword I'd go after: how often it's searched, how hard it is, and where you rank today.

Well, that’s a first!

It took just 1 hour and 18 minutes for my app to get reviewed and approved. I’ve had fast approvals before but nothing quite as fast.

This is / was a fairly meaty update too.

I use AI agents a lot while building, so I end up with useful markdowns for architecture decisions, debugging, PRDs and implementation notes. I was copying these into Apple Notes, then copying them back out whenever I switched agents and needed to carry context over. I got fed up with managing the handoffs myself. Related decisions were scattered across notes, and finding something still depended on remembering where I’d put it.

So I built Cohestry for iOS and macOS using Apple APIs. It connects notes automatically through a deterministic connection system, with Apple Intelligence handling tagging and finding deeper connections. Getting those working well took quite a bit of tuning. The notes form a 3D brain you can explore, and the Mac app includes an MCP bridge so compatible agents can retrieve relevant context, with configurable controls to prevent context bloat. The mcp bridge has a built in auto redaction system to prevent agents from accidentally seeing things like your api or p8 keys. It connected my original EchoVault write-up to newer development notes, which was a pretty satisfying way to revisit how the project had evolved.

Feature creep definitely happened 😂 There’s rich Markdown with inline images, Apple Notes import on Mac, a share extension, PDF export and sync between devices. But the iOS app still weighs only 15 MB. It’s local first and zero knowledge by design, and what started as a fix for my development workflow has become one of my most-used apps. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cohestry-second-brain/id6811573132

I'm a PM by day and code my fitness app solo on nights and weekends. It's a workout app that counts reps with the phone camera (on-device pose detection). iOS is ~70% of my users.

The bug I didn't know I had

In August I found that iOS users who declined camera access never reached the dashboard. They landed on a blank screen with a single button pointing them to Settings. My funnel had been telling me for months: only 57% of downloads ever started a workout, and only 67% of those finished one.

It made me realize a lot of people just want a workout tracker and aren't comfortable turning on a camera to count reps (or are confused why the camera is being requested). So I:

• Added manual logging for anyone who doesn't want the camera
• Rebuilt onboarding to ask how you want to track before asking for permission, with a short "try it" step for camera users
• Made the camera prompt just-in-time instead of a wall

Results: 72% of downloads now start a workout (+15 pts), and 85% of those finish it (+18 pts).

Then monetization finally moved

For months I had 2 paying subscribers: monthly plan only, no trial. A few weeks ago I added a yearly plan with a 7-day free trial and redesigned the paywall (two cards, yearly preselected, simple Free vs Plus table), and it now shows after people have already counted a few reps.

• Subscribers: 2 → 8, with 4 more trials active
• On track for ~$150 this month between subscriptions and post-workout ads, up from the typical ~$15-$20.

Small numbers, but it's the first time this has felt like a business. I'm pretty sure the onboarding fix did as much as the pricing change. You can't convert people who never reach the good part.

Next bet: trainers as a distribution channel

A friend of my wife's who is a personal trainer reached out in August. His ask/feedback: the camera is cool, but what he really needed was a way to send workouts to his clients and see whether they did them. Manual logging had just made that possible. So I built a free web portal for trainers:

• The trainer builds a program for each client, and each client gets their own copy the trainer can adjust
• Clients follow it in the app and log each set, and the trainer sees plan vs. actual, set by set
• A dashboard flags who's gone quiet, skipped a session, or fallen behind
• For classes, one workout can go to everyone, and camera-counted AMRAP/Tabata sessions get scored automatically to run group fitness style classes remotely with tracking

The bet: one trainer brings 10–20 clients, so it's free for trainers. They're my acquisition channel, not my customer. It just launched and I'm onboarding the first coaches by hand, so there are no results yet but happy to share with those interested.

About 20 days ago I shared my little offline farm game, Clover Hollow, here.

  Since then updates keep coming in with the latest below:

- A frog family with a little memory game called Frog Chorus

- Willowbrook Ranch, where you raise horses from foal to show horse

- Full iPad support, more languages, and a lot of bug fixes

 I'd love to know:

 - What would you want me to add next?

  - Anything that felt confusing or annoying? I'm fixing things as fast as I

  can.

  It's free with optional in-app purchases. No ads, no account, and it plays offline.

  App Store:

  https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clover-hollow-cozy-farm/id6816351436

  And if you've made an app too, drop it in the comments. I'll check them out!

I’m a solo dev and just shipped Plus One, a lifting tracker for iPhone and Apple Watch.

The hardest part was letting the watch run a full workout without the phone nearby. I ended up with the watch writing what happens during the workout to a small event journal, then replaying those events on the phone when they reconnect, instead of trying to sync the finished workout as one object.

Data is SwiftData with CloudKit sync. I’m on my fifth schema version already, and every CloudKit schema change has to be deployed to Production before a build goes out.

App Store link if you want to see it running: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6818854662

For anyone else who’s built a standalone watch app: how are you handling sync when the user edits the same workout on both devices?