u/Double_Tower_4841

Launched my first production iOS app on the App Store this Wednesday. VTapr — AI physique scanner. Solo, no co-founder, no funding. 4 weeks of focused build time.

Stack:

- Expo + React Native + TypeScript

- Supabase (auth + Postgres + edge functions)

- Claude API for the physique analysis

- RevenueCat for subscriptions ($14.99/mo or $99.99/yr)

- EAS Build for the binary, EAS Submit for App Store Connect

I know this sub leans Swift/SwiftUI native, so I want to share the actual experience of shipping a paid subscription iOS app on RN in 2026, because the discourse around "RN is dying" feels disconnected from what's actually shippable.

WHAT EXPO/RN GAVE ME:

- Hot reload during development, which for solo iteration is enormous

- TypeScript across the entire stack

- EAS Build handles signing/provisioning automatically — I never opened Xcode for a non-debug build

- One codebase that can ship Android later if I want

- Claude/Cursor support is significantly better for JS/TS than Swift right now (relevant when you're a solo dev using AI tooling)

WHAT IT COST ME:

- Native config changes (Info.plist permissions, push entitlements) require full new EAS builds. No hot reload for these. Lost an afternoon when I added a camera permission and didn't realize it needed a fresh build.

- Some libraries lag behind iOS releases. react-native-body-highlighter (2D body diagram) is great but 2D only — I want a 3D model with tappable muscles, which means WebView + Three.js + GLTF, way more work than it'd be in SceneKit native.

- Build times are slow. EAS Build production iOS takes ~15-25 min. If you're iterating on something that needs a native build to test (permissions, IAP), that adds up fast.

WHERE I GOT BURNED ON THE APPLE SIDE:

1. IAP review is a separate flow from binary review. They review together but you have to attach the products to the version submission explicitly in App Store Connect or you get auto-rejected. Lost a day on this.

2. Demo account is mandatory for any app with paid features. Reviewer literally cannot test gated features without one. I made a Pro-enabled test account in Supabase with is_pro: true set manually.

3. Day-one bug I'd never have caught in dev: Supabase auth sessions silently die when iOS suspends the JS runtime in the background. Fix is wiring AppState change listeners to startAutoRefresh/stopAutoRefresh on the supabase client. The Supabase RN docs mention it but it's easy to miss. This was bug #1 of three I shipped a hotfix for today (1.0.1 already distributed).

THE TAKEAWAY:

If you're a solo dev or small team, RN/Expo is genuinely production-viable for paid iOS subscription apps in 2026. RevenueCat abstracts the worst parts of StoreKit. Supabase abstracts the worst parts of backend. You give up some platform-specific polish and some library breadth — for a solo founder shipping fast, the tradeoff is the right one.

If you're building a graphics-heavy app, an AR app, or anything that needs deep iOS-specific APIs (HealthKit, ARKit, CoreML on-device), go native. Use the right tool.

Happy to answer specifics about the EAS workflow, the RevenueCat integration, the Supabase auth setup, the Apple submission process, or any of the bugs I shipped today's hotfix for. Will reply to everything.

Started this in September. Launched it this morning.

There were months in between where I had nothing to show, where the idea kept shifting, where I'd build something for three weeks and scrap it. The version that's live today isn't even the 3rd version of what I was trying to make. It's the literal 35th build.

VTapr is an AI physique scanner. You take 3 photos (front, side, back), the AI gives you a score out of 100, breaks down which muscles are developed vs which are lagging, and builds a workout plan around your weak points. I'm 21, self taught coder, no co-founder, no funding, no team. Just me.

Stack for anyone curious: Expo + React Native + TypeScript, Supabase for backend, Claude API for the physique analysis, RevenueCat for subscriptions. (P.S also had the help of Cursor which saved me haha)

The build that's live right now is build 35. I submitted to Apple on April 13. They rejected it the first time because I hadn't attached the in-app purchase products to the binary review (that's a separate submission in App Store Connect, I had no idea). I also hadn't set up a demo account with Pro pre-enabled, so the reviewer couldn't actually test the paid features. Fixed both, resubmitted, approved.

Today, within hours of launch, real users hit three bugs:

- Auth session wouldn't persist when the app got backgrounded

- No way to take a photo with the camera, only pick from library

- Pre-upgrade scans showed 0 for every muscle in the breakdown for users who upgraded after taking them

Fixed all three tonight. 1.0.1 is already submitted to Apple for review. Genuinely surreal to fix bugs that are affecting people who are USING something I made.

I haven't slept properly in months. There were stretches in February where I genuinely thought I was building something nobody would want. The Cursor Hackathon at IE in March was the first time I built something AI-related and it clicked, that's actually where the seed for VTapr came from. Then late March I started building this starting completely over, 5-8 hours a day every day, while still working full time.

Distribution feels harder than building, and building was already the hardest thing I've done.

I just wanted to actually mark this somewhere because most days the work felt invisible and today there are real people with accounts and scans in a database and I can see them in Supabase and it's the strangest feeling. Eight months ago this was a Notion doc.

If anyone wants to talk about the App Store submission flow, RevenueCat setup, building solo with AI tools, or just wants to commiserate about how long it takes to ship something that looks simple from the outside, I'm here for the next few hours and will reply to everything.