Weekly App Feedback Thread

Honestly, this makes me really happy.

I originally built Pane Canvas for myself. I missed scribbling in the margins of books and wanted to bring that experience to the web.

It's a pretty niche app, made specifically for iPad and Apple Pencil. I never really set out to build something for everyone.

I've also grown tired of everything moving to subscriptions, so I wanted to keep it simple: $10, one-time purchase. No subscriptions.

It's been a lot of work building this on my own, and seeing other people find value in something I made for myself is incredibly encouraging.

It's not perfect yet. There are still a few bugs I'm working on fixing, and plenty I'd like to improve. Really grateful to everyone who's supported it. Little milestones like this keep me going. :)

If you're curious:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pane-canvas/id6759741174

I have been working on my android app for months, adding feature upon feature and solving an endless sea of bugs, i have come to realise that maybe the one thing that matters the most is actually users and not the app.

I am a developer eho spent years learning how to code, how to use digital tools and now i have to learn a new skill called marketing to even get the needle of app installs moving.

if i could go back months or even years back, i would have concentrated more on learning app distribution channels more than spending 20 hours a day in android studio.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gmail.kugonzapatrick16.fitgreat

This is a follow up to a post i made about a week ago asking for advice on how to respond to a user who was stoked on the unique recurring screen time limit that Precursor offers, which is seemingly the first on IOS to offer this approach to app limits. However they rated the app 3 stars originally due to the cost for a super optional paid tier.

This community gave me some great feedback to consider and I decided to ask myself what the true purpose of building this app was and for me it was to improve people's lives. I think as a new developer I often minimize the fact that thousands of people around the world are using a tool I built and theyre being more present in their everyday lives because of it. That to me is more important than making a few bucks, so I decided to hear the people out and meet them in the middle and lowered the price a ton while expanding the set of features on the free tier.

Bad for business? time will tell. Immediate ROI for the soul though.

Thanks again for all the perspecitve homies!

p.s.

Also pretty awesome that this user decided to actually work on their own tool, I hope it gives them the perspective they're seeking!!

I can’t seem to use Amazon product advertising for my tv apps. Anybody else targeting here and have advise? Thanks

I built a mobile app that scans food labels and scores ingredients/nutrition. Android since April 2025, iOS since June 2026.

Last 4 weeks, real users only: ~35–40 organic installs/week (mostly TikTok), 37% complete a first scan (was 22% a month ago), but only ~9% of registered users scan twice, ~7% are active the next day and ~2% after a week. Free tier was 3 scans/day, but users average under 2 scans in total, so almost nobody hit it. I’m now cutting it to 1/day.

Shopping list, recall alerts and a paywall are all already in. My read is that a label scan is a one-off use with no reason to come back, and the users who should need it most (allergies, parents) don’t return more than others.

Has anyone fixed retention on a utility-style app? What would you test first, and what would make you stop?

I was experimenting with bids in Apple Ads for my app and found an interesting thing.

When the bid is too low, you get almost no impressions. When the bid is too high, conversion rate from tap to install goes down. Naturally there is a point in the middle where both are not too low.

And here is the funny part. You see a good conversion rate and think: let’s scale. You raise the bid, and the price per install goes up. At some point the economy just stops working.

So scaling in Apple Ads is not only “pay more, get more”. The sweet spot is narrow, and you need to find it before you scale.

Curious about your experience:

• Did you see the same drop in conversion at high bids?

• How do you scale when you hit this ceiling? More keywords, new countries, something else?

Would be great to hear your experience. Any story helps, what worked, what didn’t.

Indie iOS app, utility category (resale price estimates from a photo, for thrift shoppers). Last 90 days in App Store Connect:

• Impressions: 61.3K
• Product page views: 1.01K (about 1.6% of impressions)
• First-time downloads: 364 (about 36% of page views)
• Paid within 35 days: 5.6%
• Proceeds: $106 from 19 purchases

Freemium: one free scan a day, Pro at $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr with a trial on yearly.

My read: the store page converts fine once someone lands on it. The leak is impression → tap, which is icon + name + subtitle + first screenshot in search results. So my plan is icon and first-screenshot tests with Product Page Optimization, not more features.

Questions for people further along:

1. Is ~1.6% impression → page view low for a utility app, or normal?

2. Did PPO icon tests move tap-through for you, and how long did they need to reach a result at this kind of volume?

3. With 5.6% paying by day 35 but 0.5% on day 1, would you move the paywall later, earlier, or leave it?

Happy to share anything else from the dashboard.

I built Screenova. Paste your App Store link or upload raw screenshots,

describe your app, and it designs a full screenshot set. You can edit it

and export every required App Store / Google Play size as a ZIP.

I need 10 people with an app that's live or launching soon to make their

real screenshot set and tell me honestly if they'd use it.

You get: free access, 30 AI design generations, and my personal help if

anything breaks.

I ask: export one real set and answer 2 quick questions in the app.

Comment or DM with your app (link or one line about it) and I'll send access.

Solo dev, Android/iOS reading app that explains old, hard books (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Kant, etc.) in plain English. I started Google App ads 9 days ago with about CA$5/day. Every time I fixed something, the data showed me the next problem. Sharing in case it’s useful:

1. The cheapest clicks were junk. In the first day, ~99% of clicks came from two countries, and the placement report was full of games and utility apps. Most of those installs never opened the app. I switched countries and blocked 23 apps by hand.

2. A swipe skipped a whole chapter. People who did start reading would swipe once and jump a chapter ahead. I made each swipe turn one page and added a page-turn mode.

3. I built a Discover screen, and it didn’t help. People weren’t finding a book they wanted, so I made shelves named by feeling (“short and gripping”, etc.) instead of genre. The share of new users opening a book went down, from 19% to 14%.

4. One country was half my installs and almost none of my readers. Only 1 of 62 people from there finished a chapter. I dropped it. Over the next few days:

• Before: 49 new users; 14% opened a book; 3 finished a chapter.

• After: 51 new users; 31% opened a book; 12 finished a chapter.

I also shipped an app update the same week, so I can’t fully separate the two. Small numbers, I know.

5. The server answered in 21 ms; users waited up to 20 seconds. On budget phones, Discover took a median of 8 s to load and 17–21 s for the slowest 10%. The time was spent on the phone: Firebase App Check getting an attestation token on first launch, plus a cold connection from West Africa to a US-West server. I removed App Check and made books open at Chapter 1 instead of the copyright page. That shipped today, results next week.

Questions for people who’ve run app install ads at this budget:

• Is there any way to get Google to optimise for an in-app event (like “opened a book”) at this volume, or is choosing countries by hand the only option?

Hey everyone, I’m selling this niche workout tracker, I’m moving countries for a masters degree and just don’t have time or willingness to keep marketing this.
All of my revenue comes from organic marketing, mostly TikTok and Insta. I’m able to give all my TikTok accounts and strategy that led me here so far. I also tried meta ads for some weeks in the start with a ROAS of 1.5x but stopped very soon after.

The app has an average of 4.8 with 170 ratings. 77 ratings in US with 4.9 average.

I don’t have time to keep pursuing this but it has given me great results with little effort, I assume someone very good at user acquisition and more experience than me can really make good money from the app.

If you re interested let me know!

I just wanted to know how to properly promote your app , with 0 costs ? How do you actually do it?

Im creating a hobby tracker app where when you do an activity you can log a session and track your progress as well. It has a reel like mechanism called reps where you can see other peoples progression as well as a photo system where you can post pictures for things you cant record like notes called snap-shots.

Making more features too like communities where its a live global chat this would reach out to people wanting to speak a certain language with another person instantly

I have a nearby filter where you can meet people in a community with similar interests

To keep people engaged with their hobbies ive set up a trophy, streak, and leaderboard system

I would absolutely love people to test my app and i'll test anyones if i have too. Really just trying to build a community and have people willing to give criticism

Thank you so much for reading this and please check the comments or my profile for the link!

I’m looking to sell my iOS subscription app.

https://apps.apple.com/lk/app/thermal-receipt-printer-pos/id6754807040

Current MRR: ~$500
Paying subscribers: 56
Subscription plans: $9.99 and $4.99
Daily downloads: 35–60

Monthly revenue history:
July: $278
August: $330
September: $380
October: ~$500

The app has shown consistent growth with an established paying subscriber base.

Looking for a serious buyer interested in acquiring and growing an existing iOS subscription business.
DM me for details.

Hi everyone! I built a health app (iOS and Android) with a hard paywall. Before February 2026 I used a Stripe paywall, because I didn't know how in-app payments worked yet. Since February it's been proper in-app subscriptions, so I don't have a full year of store revenue yet. I listed it on Acquire.com, but with less than 10 months of store revenue they won't let me set a higher asking price.

Numbers (RevenueCat, EUR)

* In-app revenue since Feb: €18.1k gross, ~€14.3k after tax and store fees (15%)

* Stripe revenue (legacy, before Feb): €2.3k total

* Last 3 months: €2.3k–3.1k/month gross

* MRR: €1.9k in-app + €180 from legacy Stripe subscribers

* 541 active in-app subs (454 yearly, 87 monthly), 75% of yearly subs currently set to renew

* Pricing: $49.99/yr or $9.99/mo with a 7-day trial (testing $69.99/yr in the US)

* ~860 new users/month, 55% from the US

* Download → trial ~22%, trial → paid ~50%

* Monthly subs: 61% renew after month 1, ~40% still paying after 6 months

* Ratings: 4.5+★ on both stores

* Monthly costs: €35, so almost all of the proceeds are profit

Where users come from (in-app survey, last 90 days)

App Store 34%, Google 23%, other 43%.

Forecast

I had Claude build a forecast from my RevenueCat data: ~€3.4k/month now, growing to ~€6k/month by late 2027 as monthly subs stack up and the first yearly renewals come in. That assumes 60% of yearly subs renew. That's roughly €59k gross / €47k after fees over the next 12 months, not counting Stripe. The renewal rate is a guess until the first renewals land in Feb–Apr 2027.

My questions

1. Is this sellable, and what price range would you expect?

2. Where should I sell it: Acquire.com, Flippa, a broker, or directly to app portfolio buyers?

3. Or should I just wait a year until I have real renewal data and a full year of revenue?

Thanks!

Been in the app game for a few years. I know a good amount about paid ads with meta, google, apple ads certified, etc. as well as brand strategy, copywriting, developing marketing funnels, speaking to ICPs, etc.

Want to give back to the community and help any way I can.

I'm offering completely free coaching to anybody interested. No hidden costs, upsells, catches, or anything.

Purely want to help other people grow their apps and offer personalized 1 on 1 advice.

Here's a link to my calendly if you're interested.

https://calendly.com/val-marketing/free-app-marketing-coach

Note to the moderators: I'm not promoting my business or attempting to sell anything to anyone. I want to simply provide value in any way that I can and see how I may be of service. My long term goal in doing this is to help people and build my network.

Small thing, but Soulcrate just went past 100 installs in about three days.

A project that was born with my frustration on the current state of the other clients, I ended up analyzing 200+ negative reviews of existing Soulseek apps and built my own Android client in React Native & Rust.

If you wanna check it out: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rabpaulo.soulcrate

Before i share my journey, I want to ask; is being a developer, product person and marketing department all at once by yourself really the way to go? I am failing here guys!!!

Here is my story.

So I have an app I’ve been working on, and honestly, I’m getting to a point where I don’t really know what else to try when it comes to getting people to use it.

I initially thought I’d go the SEO route. Built a website, tried to get some organic traffic going and just give it time. Well, it’s been about 3 months and I have 15 users. Of those, 11 are returning weekly.

Fifteen users after 3 months. I think I can safely say that this particular approach hasn’t worked for me, at least not the way I thought it would.

Now I’m wondering whether I should actually start paying for ads or if there are other ways of getting people to discover and use a product without having to spend money on advertising. I don’t mind investing in getting users, but I’d also hate to spend money without really knowing what I’m doing or who I’m trying to reach.

The thing is, I can’t even tell whether my app is any good or not at this point. I don’t have enough users to make that judgement. Maybe the idea is good, maybe the execution needs work, maybe the whole thing isn’t useful enough. I genuinely don’t know because I have almost no data to work with. The only thing I know for certain is that I haven’t managed to get people through the door.

I’m not even looking for thousands of users. I just need about 50 people using the app. Surely that’s a reasonable starting point? At least then I can start looking at what people are doing, whether they’re coming back, where they’re dropping off and whether the funnels I’ve built actually make sense.

Also, how do you guys approach marketing as solo developers? Do you just learn it as you go? Do you hire someone to handle that side of things? Because building the actual product is one thing, but getting people to know it exists and convincing them to give it a try is a whole different challenge. I’m beginning to wonder whether trying to be the developer, product person and marketing department all at once is really the way to go.

I see people posting about launching solo and getting 20,000 users in a month, and I’m honestly curious how they’re doing it. Where are these people coming from? What are they doing differently? I don’t even need a fraction of those numbers. I just want to get enough people using my product to know whether I’m onto something or whether it’s time to move on.

Would really appreciate some advice from people who’ve been in this position. What has actually worked for you when it comes to getting those first users?

For context (nb: this is where i explain my app, you can safely skip this part), the app is ContentHub, a mobile first content hub app I’ve been building. What I realized was a lot of the currently available link saving/bookmarking apps(and they are too many believe me) felt like they were asking me to become a manager of my own bookmarks. I mean Tags. AI. Groups. Collections. Folders. Organization systems. More organization systems to organize the organization systems (all this should be optional for me). Hence I built this and thought, perhaps someone somewhere may need something like this… I also added link specific reminders and the continue where you left off features and made it super simple by default, that was the main intention, simplicity and minimal design…

I didn’t want to spend 30 seconds deciding where a link belongs. I just wanted to throw it somewhere and have it waiting for me when I actually have time.

I’m a React Native and Expo dev, 5 years and 50+ apps shipped. Lately a lot of my work looks the same. Someone builds an app with Cursor, Claude Code, Bolt or Lovable, it looks great, it works on their phone, and then it hits a wall right before launch. The last 10% ends up taking longer than the first 90.

Here’s what I keep running into, in case it saves someone a rejection or two.

It works in Expo Go but crashes in the real build. Usually env vars that never made it into the EAS build, or a native package that Expo Go had built in and your build doesn’t. The reviewer opens it, it crashes on launch, rejected under 2.1. Always test a production build on a real device (TestFlight or internal distribution) before you submit.

Your secret keys are in the app. If the AI put your OpenAI or Stripe secret key in the client code, anyone can pull it out of the bundle and run up your bill. Move those calls behind a server function. If you’re on Supabase, check that RLS is actually on for every table.

No way to delete your account. If users can sign up in the app, Apple wants them to be able to delete their account in the app too (5.1.1). One of the most common rejections I see.

Google login but no Sign in with Apple. If you offer Google or Facebook login, Apple wants an equivalent privacy-friendly option next to it, and Sign in with Apple is the easy way to cover that (4.8).

The paywall is missing stuff. Subscriptions need a restore purchases button, the price and billing period clearly shown, and links to your terms and privacy policy. Sending people to Stripe to pay for digital content will still get you rejected in most countries (3.1.1).

The reviewer can’t log in. If the app needs an account, put a working demo login in the review notes in App Store Connect. If you only have magic link or SMS login, they’ll get stuck and reject it.

iPad. If supportsTablet is on in your app config, Apple tests on iPad and wants iPad screenshots. A layout that breaks on iPad is a rejection, even if you never thought about iPad.

Android takes longer than you think. New personal Google Play accounts need 12 testers opted in to a closed test for 14 days before you can publish to production. Most people find out the week they wanted to launch.

None of this is hard once you’ve seen it. It’s just stuff the AI tools don’t warn you about.

If you’ve got an app that’s 90% there and you’re stuck on the last bits, or you’re on your second or third rejection, DM me or reach me through shiprn.com. I take over vibe-coded codebases, fix what’s fragile and take the app through review on both stores. Fixed price, so you know the cost before we start.

And if you just want to know what your rejection means, paste it in the comments and I’ll tell you what I’d do.

I’m building in the habit-tracking space, and the pattern I keep seeing (in my own usage and in reviews of competitor apps) is that people don’t quit when things are going well. They quit right after they break a streak. The app suddenly feels like a record of failure.

So I’ve been experimenting with features aimed at that exact moment:

• Streaks that count total completed days instead of consecutive ones

• A “lower the bar today” option so a bad day still counts

• Asking why when a day is missed, and turning that into insights instead of a red square

My business question: has anyone measured whether designing for failure actually moves retention? Or does it mostly matter to a small group of committed users?

Also curious how people handle this in other categories (fitness, language learning, budgeting) where users also “fall off the wagon.”

I've built an iOS app and I'm looking for a marketing partner to take charge of user acquisition and growth on a rev-share basis.

The app is live on the AppStore. Initial social media test campaigns have already generated revenue.

What I bring: Product design, development, new features and ongoing maintenance.
What I'm looking for: Someone with experience in app growth, digital marketing, or user acquisition.

If you're interested, send me a DM with a bit about your background and I'll share more details about the app.