Notes from an indie iOS studio
Thoughts on native development, shipping to the App Store, and building apps people actually finish downloading.
What I Shipped in 2026 So Far: 15 Apps, One Person
Fifteen App Store launches between February and September, in order — and what shared code, no backends and official sources had to do with the pace.
Product StrategySeven Bac Apps in Four Months: How the Bacalaureat Series Came Together
What the seven Bacalaureat prep apps share, what had to be built per subject, and why the content, not the code, is where the time went.
ProductRedobândire Permis: Building for a Test Nobody Wants to Take
Launch notes for app number 26: a 13-of-15 simulation under real conditions, dated legislation, and a guide to the procedure nobody explains.
ProductApp Store Rejections We've Actually Hit
Twenty-plus submissions in, here are the rejections that came back more than once — the guideline behind each one, and the actual fix.
BusinessASO Without a Marketing Budget
No ad spend, no growth team — just keyword research, honest screenshots, and localized listings. How we actually get niche apps found.
EngineeringWhy Most of Our Apps Don't Have a Backend
No server, no hosting bill, no downtime risk. The case for no-backend, offline-first iOS apps — and where that pattern actually breaks down.
EngineeringOne SwiftUI Kit, 19 Apps: What We Actually Share
A shared internal component library is how we ship new apps fast — and how one careless change could break all of them at once.
Product StrategyOne App, Three Citizenship Tests: What Localizing Civio Actually Meant
Romania, Germany, the US — three completely different exam formats. What actually had to change, and what stayed shared, when we took one test-prep app to three markets.
EngineeringSwiftUI in Production: What We'd Tell Ourselves at App #1
19 apps into shipping SwiftUI in production — the parts that held up, and the parts that quietly cost us time before we learned to spot them.
BusinessSubscription or One-Time Purchase: How We Pick a Pricing Model Per App
It's not a branding choice — it's a bet on whether an app's value renews. Here's the framework we actually use, app by app.
EngineeringWhat We Actually Test Before Every App Store Submission
A working build isn't a submittable one. This is the checklist that runs between "feature complete" and "hit submit" on every app we ship.
BusinessHow We Price an iOS App Project
"It depends" is a true answer, but not a useful one. Here's what actually moves the number, so you can tell early if your budget and your idea are in the same range.
Product StrategyTesting Small Bets: Why We Ship Many Small Apps Instead of One Big One
Six apps in Health & Fitness alone, each doing one thing. It looks like we're competing with ourselves. We're actually just placing better bets.
Product StrategyWe Turned One App Idea Into a Template: The Legi & Amenzi Series
Four apps, four legal domains, one shared shell. Here's how templating a proven app idea across niches beat building one all-in-one reference app.
Product PhilosophyDesigning for One Feature: Why Focused Apps Beat Bloated Ones
Most of our portfolio does exactly one thing. That's not a limitation — it's the whole strategy, and it's why users actually keep these apps installed.
ProductFrom Idea to App Store: What Actually Slows Indie Apps Down
After shipping 17+ apps through App Store Review, the bottleneck is almost never the code. It's everything around it — here's what to get right early.
EngineeringWhy We Build Native iOS Instead of Cross-Platform
Flutter and React Native promise one codebase for every platform. Here's why that trade rarely pays off for the kind of apps we build — and when it actually would.
Working on an iOS app of your own?
Tell me what you're building and where you're stuck. I'll tell you honestly whether and how I can help.