> I'm about 90% done, I think.
... and the rest will take the other 90% of the time :)
My first attempt at iOS app development
81–90 of 150 posts
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#82The author will learn the hard way that their proposed, fair pricing model won’t even pay a solo dev. Making reasonable money on iOS is hard, like, really hard, and just having a good product is definitely not enough. Sorry to sound so pessimistic; I just want to emphasise that monetisation and marketing is at least as important on iOS as product development.
it should go without saying that development cost, and rest of operational cost (design, legal, etc.) should be considered as zero. meaning do yourself with no pay. with all money goes into marketing. only then there is slight hope to break even.
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#83Fascinated to read this post as I’m doing almost exactly the same thing. Just started using Xcode for the first time, a month ago. I’m not inexperienced with software development, but having to rely mostly on Xcode, Apple’s Developer documentation, information embedded inside WWDC videos, and random forum posts, has been a pretty rough experience.
So Claude has been a massive help, to get to a working app quickly. I am using it in a similar style to the author. Discuss in the UI, try really hard to cherry-pick from the code it generates, while trying to understand what it’s doing. Claude is not clever enough to realise it’s selling you out-of-date APIs, so i feel I need to be super vigilant, which chimes with what folk are saying here about the iOS upgrade treadmill. I’ve supplemented with a couple of technical ebooks as backup.
But the feeling of having your own app, that does something which improves your own life, running on that computer you’ve been carrying in your pocket for years, is extremely rewarding! (In my use case it needs to be an app not a PWA because it needs to integrate with device APIs.)
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#84Coming from embedded development, where it's mostly crappy SOC vendors providing a barely-working SDK and toolchain they cobbled together from an ancient version of gcc, moving to iOS development / Xcode was in most aspects a breath of fresh air. It does have its annoyances, though. Code signing, provisioning profiles, entitlements, AppStore wizardry... And the developer program fee is a bummer: It means you can't su…
I'm in embedded development right now (switched from EE, because higher pay, easier to find clients and more flexibility). Would you recommend the switch from embedded to app writing? What I'm looking for: more location independence (no on-site work) and more clients/work/jobs.
What about switching from app dev to embedded? Is an EE knowledge required?
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#85The author will learn the hard way that their proposed, fair pricing model won’t even pay a solo dev. Making reasonable money on iOS is hard, like, really hard, and just having a good product is definitely not enough. Sorry to sound so pessimistic; I just want to emphasise that monetisation and marketing is at least as important on iOS as product development.
Yes, making money on iOS is an uphill climb, many times more so if you’re not playing the TikTok ads and subscription model. I’ve been making iOS software independently for almost 2 years now ( https://heliographe.studio ) and am about ramen profitable. A few notes in case OP (or anyone interested in making some money in the App Store) is reading: - you have to make the app free to download, and quickly demonstrate v…
+1 agree with above. looks very accurate to what I see so far (1 month in App Store).
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the updated tools tend to drop support for older SDKs and devices. You have to kind of go out of your way to keep your app targeting them. You can see how this plays out by getting a second hand iPhone 7 today and go to the AppStore looking for apps. It will be very difficult to find an app that will run on it. This phone is not that old, but the ecosystem abandons you pretty quickly. Well, you're mixing 2 things h…
Apple requires developers to build the apps with at least Xcode 16 targeting the SDK of least iOS 18 to submit new apps / updates to the App Store [1]. This limits how far back you can go with the iOS version, thus dropping older phones. Yes, you can definitely download older SDKs and target older iOS versions, but you cannot publish those apps on the App Store anymore. [1] https://developer.apple.com/news/upcoming-r…
That phrasing is misleading.
You can absolutely publish apps that target versions of iOS prior to iOS 18; eg all my apps are iOS 15+, I published one as recently as last week.
You can build an app with the iOS 18 SDK that target previous versions just fine (as long as your calls to APIs posterior to the version you’re targeting, if any, are wrapped in the proper macros) and submit them to the App Store.
So yes, you have to build your apps with the latest SDK to publish them - but that doesn’t restrict the target OS version in any way (ie I can build apps that target iOS 9 with the iOS 18 SDK).
Where it starts to be a pain for new apps built in 2025 is if you want to target pre iOS 13, as you’ll have to use the older AppDelegate mechanism, but still totally doable. (That’s getting deprecated with the next release, but deprecated APIs still build just fine).
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#87Coming from embedded development, where it's mostly crappy SOC vendors providing a barely-working SDK and toolchain they cobbled together from an ancient version of gcc, moving to iOS development / Xcode was in most aspects a breath of fresh air. It does have its annoyances, though. Code signing, provisioning profiles, entitlements, AppStore wizardry... And the developer program fee is a bummer: It means you can't su…
> the updated tools tend to drop support for older SDKs and devices. You have to kind of go out of your way to keep your app targeting them. You can see how this plays out by getting a second hand iPhone 7 today and go to the AppStore looking for apps. It will be very difficult to find an app that will run on it. This phone is not that old, but the ecosystem abandons you pretty quickly. Well, you're mixing 2 things h…
I just submitted a bug to Apple because of an api that crashes the simulator unless you target the latest version of iOS. On device you can target any previous version of iOS easily.
This is just one annoyance of many I encounter on regular basis.
They do go to great extend to allow you to support older versions, but they don’t make it always easy.
Last versions of iOS have been specially rough because SwiftUI has been constantly evolving, and keeping backward support is just a nightmare.
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had to respond, not because I think you are wrong, but because I have had almost exactly the opposite experience and conclusions from you apparently. > iPhone 7 I still have one as a TV device for me and my son to watch paw patrol. I can only speak for the set of apps I use on it, but as of a few hours ago they all still work (streaming, email, browser. no banking or other apps in that class). I am looking to repla…
I think it’s weird how confused people get when you suggest a 9 year old electronic device should work. Every computer in my house is over 10 years old. My A/V receiver and home theater speakers are 15 years old. My TV is 18 years old. My electronic thermostat is 11 years old. While they no longer receive firmware updates, they all continue to work as well as they worked on the day I bought them. For some reason, nob…
I agree. Phones aren't increasing in performance all that fast any more and the use cases haven't really changed. OS and sdk makers should start to consider their tools "mature" and stop breaking compatibility with each and every update.
Something like the Go 1.0 compatibility promise.
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the updated tools tend to drop support for older SDKs and devices. You have to kind of go out of your way to keep your app targeting them. You can see how this plays out by getting a second hand iPhone 7 today and go to the AppStore looking for apps. It will be very difficult to find an app that will run on it. This phone is not that old, but the ecosystem abandons you pretty quickly. Well, you're mixing 2 things h…
Apple requires developers to build the apps with at least Xcode 16 targeting the SDK of least iOS 18 to submit new apps / updates to the App Store [1]. This limits how far back you can go with the iOS version, thus dropping older phones. Yes, you can definitely download older SDKs and target older iOS versions, but you cannot publish those apps on the App Store anymore. [1] https://developer.apple.com/news/upcoming-r…
This is different from the Minimum Deployment, which I current have set to iOS 12.0 in Xcode 16.2.
Re: My first attempt at iOS app development
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back in the days of newgrounds, a bunch of kids learned to program by picking up flash, making games, and sharing them with their friends. That would not have happened if you had to pay even $1/year to publish a .swf file. Now, their friends all have iphones, and if a kid could hack out an app for their friend group and share it around, it would give them great motivation to learn and hack in that ecosystem. It's kid…
You're speaking of kids. What kids? We don't really make much kids anymore in the developed world :p
Just wait 30 years and the problem will be fixed.