Login

u/Nate881188

r/WegovyWeightLoss r/GenAiApps r/iOSProgramming r/iOSAppsMarketing r/Munich r/Appstore r/ADHDmeds r/Wegovy r/ViralApps r/appledevelopers r/IMadeThis r/AppBusiness r/ChronicIllness r/iosapps r/AppStoreOptimization r/iosdev
Image 1 — I built the app I wish I had as a kid—to make children curious about the invisible world around them
Image 2 — I built the app I wish I had as a kid—to make children curious about the invisible world around them
Image 3 — I built the app I wish I had as a kid—to make children curious about the invisible world around them
Image 4 — I built the app I wish I had as a kid—to make children curious about the invisible world around them
Image 5 — I built the app I wish I had as a kid—to make children curious about the invisible world around them
▲ 1 r/IMadeThis

I built the app I wish I had as a kid—to make children curious about the invisible world around them

Hi everyone! 👋
For the last few months, I’ve been building MicroQuest, an educational app for iPhone and iPad.
The goal isn’t to teach microbiology.
The goal is to make kids curious.
We spend so much time showing children dinosaurs, planets, and sharks—but there’s an entire invisible world living all around us that’s just as fascinating.
MicroQuest lets kids discover bacteria, fungi, protozoa, viruses, tiny animals, and many other microorganisms as collectible characters while quietly teaching real science along the way.
The hardest part wasn’t writing the code.
It was finding the balance between scientific accuracy and making everything feel fun, friendly, and exciting enough that a child actually wants to keep exploring.
Today is a pretty exciting milestone: the English and Spanish versions are finally in App Review.
I’d genuinely love some honest feedback from this community:
Does the idea immediately make sense?
Would your child (or your younger self 😄) enjoy something like this?
What’s the very first thing you’d improve?
This has been a real passion project, and I’m excited (and a little nervous) to finally share it.
Thanks for reading! ❤️

u/Nate881188 — 1 day ago
▲ 1 r/iOSProgramming

App Saturday: I built an AI-powered microscope app to get kids excited about microbiology

I built an iPad app called MicroQuest to help kids explore the invisible world of microorganisms.
Instead of teaching biology through long explanations, the app lets children discover bacteria, protozoa, fungi, viruses and tiny animals as collectible characters while learning real science.
The biggest challenge wasn’t building the app—it was balancing scientific accuracy with something that still feels fun enough for a 6–10 year old.
Today I’m submitting the first English and Spanish localization for review.
I’d really appreciate feedback from other iOS developers:
• Is the concept immediately clear?
• Would you position it more as an educational app or as a game?
• How would you explain the value in one sentence?
• Any thoughts on the onboarding or App Store presentation?
I’d love honest feedback.

reddit.com
u/Nate881188 — 2 days ago
▲ 5 r/iosapps

I built an iOS app that helps kids discover the microscopic world

Hi everyone! 👋
After several months of development, I finally released my new iOS app: MicroQuest.
The idea came from my 7-year-old daughter, who became fascinated by the microscopic world after looking through a microscope for the first time. She kept asking questions like “What is this tiny creature?” and I wanted to create something that would make learning biology fun, visual and accessible for kids.
MicroQuest lets children discover microorganisms through colorful illustrations, fun facts and interactive quizzes, turning science into a small adventure.
Current features
🔬 Discover microorganisms and tiny life forms
🎮 Interactive quizzes
📚 Kid-friendly educational content
🎨 Colorful illustrations designed for children
🌍 More worlds planned in future updates
The app is currently available in German, and I’m actively working on the English localization, which should be available soon.
Pricing
Free to download
The first world is completely free
Additional worlds can be unlocked with a one-time purchase of €4.99
No subscription
App Store
https://apps.apple.com/de/app/microquest/id6785412539
I’d genuinely love your feedback.
Does the concept make sense?
Is the UI engaging for kids?
What features would you add?
If you’re a parent or teacher, would you use something like this?
Thanks for taking a look! 😊

Transparency
Developer: Dr. Nathan Marcus Seefelder
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-nathan-marcus-seefelder-35903a240
Website:
https://microquestapp.com
App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/de/app/microquest/id6785412539

u/Nate881188 — 3 days ago
▲ 5 r/ViralApps

I stopped building “another workout tracker” after analyzing 600+ viral fitness videos.

I spent the last few weeks analyzing why fitness apps like Stronger, Ladder and Hevy keep getting millions of views while most new fitness apps disappear.
The biggest thing I learned:
People don’t care about workout tracking.
They care about outcomes.
Every app says:
• AI coach
• Progressive overload
• Log your workouts
• Build muscle
None of those are interesting anymore.
Instead I’m building my app around one idea:
“Your body changes every day. Your workout should too.”
The app reads recovery data (Apple Health/HRV) and adapts the training instead of giving everyone the same program.
I’m now rebuilding my entire TikTok strategy around showing:
“My app told me NOT to train today.”
instead of
“Here’s another workout planner.”
Curious:
If you were launching a fitness app in 2026, what positioning would you choose?

reddit.com
u/Nate881188 — 6 days ago
▲ 0 r/iOSAppsMarketing

I grew my last app to 1,500+ Reddit upvotes. Here’s how I’m trying to launch my next app differently. What would you improve? No

I’ve been experimenting with Reddit as my main marketing channel instead of paid ads.
My previous app posts ended up reaching ~1,500 upvotes across a few communities, but they also taught me something important:
People don’t care about features first—they care about whether they immediately understand the problem.
I’m now applying that lesson to my new app, RefineSimple.
Instead of saying:
“AI-powered adaptive workout planner.”
I’m trying to communicate the actual outcome:
Your recovery adjusts today’s training instead of forcing the same workout every day.
A few things I’m testing:
problem-first copy instead of feature-first
softer wording (“nudges” instead of “decides”)
letting users experience value before the paywall
posting transparent build-in-public updates instead of ads
I’m curious:
If you had $500 to grow an iOS app today, what would you spend it on?
Apple Search Ads?
ASO?
Reddit?
Influencer videos?
Something else entirely?
I’d love feedback from people who’ve actually grown apps.

reddit.com
u/Nate881188 — 7 days ago
▲ 1 r/IMadeThis

I made a lifting app where your recovery score picks the workout — go heavy when you're fresh, rest when you're not

Solo dev project. It reads your HRV, sleep and resting heart rate from Apple Health, turns them into one readiness score each morning, and adapts your lifting session to it — heavy day when you're recovered, lighter or a rest day when you're not. There's also a chat coach you can argue with when you want to train anyway.

The clip shows it across three states: high readiness → "go heavy," low readiness → "rest, no guilt," and a quick back-and-forth with the coach.

Live on the App Store (free to start). Happy to answer anything — and I'd love to hear what you'd want it to do.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6776110728

u/Nate881188 — 7 days ago
▲ 2 r/appledevelopers

HealthKit gotcha: summing sleepAnalysis sample durations over-counts your hours — you have to merge the intervals first

Disclosure: I'm building a recovery-focused fitness app, so sleep duration feeds a score I show users. This one quietly gave me wrong numbers for a while, so sharing in case it saves someone the same debugging.

The problem. HKCategoryType(.sleepAnalysis) samples don't come from one place. Apple Watch writes them, the iPhone writes them, and any third-party app the user has (AutoSleep, Pillow, etc.) writes its own. These samples overlap in time. If you query "asleep" samples for last night and sum endDate - startDate, you double-count every region two sources both covered. I was getting 9–10h for a clearly 7h night.

It's easy to miss because each source looks internally consistent — the overlap only shows up once you have two sources active.

The fix: union-merge the intervals before summing. Classic merge-intervals — sort by start, extend the current interval whenever the next one starts before the current one ends:

swift

// iOS 16+ split "asleep" into stages — include them all, exclude .inBed
let asleepValues: Set<Int> = [
    HKCategoryValueSleepAnalysis.asleepUnspecified.rawValue,
    HKCategoryValueSleepAnalysis.asleepCore.rawValue,
    HKCategoryValueSleepAnalysis.asleepDeep.rawValue,
    HKCategoryValueSleepAnalysis.asleepREM.rawValue,
]

func mergedAsleepSeconds(_ samples: [HKCategorySample]) -> TimeInterval {
    let intervals = samples
        .filter { asleepValues.contains($0.value) }
        .map { DateInterval(start: $0.startDate, end: $0.endDate) }
        .sorted { $0.start < $1.start }

    var merged: [DateInterval] = []
    for iv in intervals {
        if let last = merged.last, iv.start <= last.end {
            merged[merged.count - 1] = DateInterval(
                start: last.start,
                end: max(last.end, iv.end)
            )
        } else {
            merged.append(iv)
        }
    }
    return merged.reduce(0) { $0 + $1.duration }
}

A few things that bit me:

  • Exclude .inBed. If you want time asleep, filtering only the asleep* values matters — .inBed spans are longer and will inflate everything.
  • Include all stages. Pre-iOS-16 data and apps that don't track stages land in asleepUnspecified; Apple Watch fills the core/deep/REM ones. Mixing them is fine after the merge.
  • Window first. Predicate to the actual night (I anchor on a noon-to-noon window) before merging, or a long afternoon nap from a different source sneaks in.
  • The same overlap trap applies to anything multi-source — I do the identical merge for active-energy/workout time.

Curious how others handle source priority: I just union everything and trust the merged total. Do any of you prefer to pick a single "best" source (Watch > third-party) instead, and if so how do you decide per-night?

reddit.com
u/Nate881188 — 7 days ago
▲ 1 r/AppBusiness

I launched with a hard paywall and got 30 downloads / €0. Here's what I think I got wrong and what I changed.

Solo dev, niche iOS app (strength training, recovery-driven). Shipped it a few weeks ago. Sharing a monetization mistake because it's the kind of thing I'd have wanted to read before launch.

The mistake. I gated the core experience behind a hard paywall from basically the first screen. You open the app and you can't do the main thing without subscribing first. There was a 14-day free trial — but you had to commit to it before you'd seen the app do anything useful. The RevenueCat funnel itself was fine: two packages, trial, Apple Pay, all working.

The result. ~30 downloads, €0 revenue. Almost nobody even started the trial. And here's the part that took me a while to accept: people weren't rejecting the price. They never got far enough to form a price opinion. They bounced before experiencing the one thing the app actually does well. A paywall only converts people who already want the thing — and a brand-new app with no reputation hasn't earned that want yet.

A red herring worth flagging. For about a day, trials from people I personally knew had subscribed weren't showing in my dashboard. I burned hours convinced my funnel was broken. It was an App Store Connect outage. Lesson: before you assume your funnel is broken, check Apple's system status page. Saved me a second panic later.

What I changed (value-first). The main tab and the first full session are now free. The paywall moved to after the user has been through the core loop once — felt the value, gotten a result — and only then asks. The premium parts stay gated, the trial is unchanged. The bet: let them experience the product, then ask, instead of asking a stranger to pay for a promise.

Honest caveat. I literally just shipped this, so I don't have post-switch conversion numbers yet — I'll report back once I do. Posting the reasoning now because "hard paywall on a product nobody has experienced yet" is such a common first-launch trap that the diagnosis alone felt worth sharing.

For discussion: For those who've launched — where do you draw the free/paid line on a new utility or habit app with no brand yet? Has anyone actually seen a hard paywall work for a first launch, or is some kind of value-first / freemium basically mandatory until you've earned trust?

u/Nate881188 — 7 days ago
▲ 3 r/GenAiApps

Finally hit “Submit for Review” 🚀 Thanks for yesterday’s feedback!

Yesterday I posted about my AI productivity app and got a lot of genuinely helpful feedback from this community.
A surprising number of you pointed out that an English version would make a huge difference.
So… I spent today localizing the app and just submitted v1.1 to Apple for review. 🤞
It’s now waiting for review and, assuming everything goes well, should be live within the next couple of days.
I honestly didn’t expect yesterday’s thread to influence the roadmap this quickly, so thanks to everyone who took the time to comment.
Once it’s approved, I’d love to hear whether the English version feels natural or if there are still rough edges.
Appreciate all the feedback so far!

u/Nate881188 — 11 days ago
▲ 5 r/GenAiApps+3 crossposts

I made an iOS strength training app that cuts your training volume when your recovery is bad — solo dev, just shipped

Spent the last months building this on my own and it’s finally live. RefineSimple is a strength training app with one core idea: instead of pushing more weight every week no matter what, it reads your recovery from Apple Health (HRV, sleep, resting heart rate) and adjusts the plan to match.
The screenshot shows it: left, recovery is high (90/100) so the coach says train confident. Right, recovery is low (48/100) so it suggests cutting volume by 25% before you even start — one tap to apply.
There’s also a conversational coach that can swap exercises, leave notes and remember context across sessions. I deliberately kept the whole thing anti-hype — no streaks, no confetti, no “CRUSH IT”. Built with SwiftUI, SwiftData and Supabase, the coach runs on an LLM.
It’s live on the App Store, German-only for now with English on the roadmap. Genuinely proud of where it landed as a solo build — happy to answer anything.

u/Nate881188 — 6 days ago
▲ 0 r/iOSProgramming

Building a conversational LLM coach with tool-use into a SwiftUI/SwiftData app — what I learned (and what still breaks)

I’m building a strength training app solo and the part that got genuinely hard wasn’t the UI — it was wiring an LLM coach that can actually do things in the app, not just chat. Sharing the architecture and a few things that bit me, curious how others have solved the same.
Stack: SwiftUI + SwiftData + @Observable, Supabase edge functions as the backend, Anthropic Claude for the coach. HealthKit feeds recovery signals (HRV, sleep, resting HR) that get scored into a readiness value, which the coach reasons over.
Tool-use: the coach has a small, fixed set of tools (swap exercise, add note, remember context, acknowledge). Keeping the tool surface tiny made parsing and execution way more reliable than an open-ended “do anything” design. I run the model in an edge function and parse tool calls server-side before they touch SwiftData.
What still breaks: streaming over SSE occasionally drops (“network connection lost”) on cold starts or large context. Considering context-trimming + a retry affordance on the client. If anyone has a robust pattern for SSE reliability between an edge function and URLSession, I’d take it.
Open question for the sub: how are you handling LLM cost per user? My unoptimized baseline is ~$1.10/user/month; I’m planning prompt caching on the static system/context blocks to cut input cost.
Screenshot of the readiness-driven UI attached. It’s live (German-only), but I’m here for the engineering discussion, not a pitch — happy to go deeper on any of the above.

reddit.com
u/Nate881188 — 12 days ago
▲ 5 r/iosdev

I built a medication reminder app and learned reminders weren’t the real problem.

Everyone thinks medication apps are about reminders.
After talking to users I realized the real problem wasn’t remembering to take medication.
It was remembering whether they already took it.
That completely changed how I think about the product.

reddit.com
u/Nate881188 — 13 days ago
▲ 2 r/ADHDmeds

What’s the hardest part about staying consistent with ADHD medication?

I’m curious what people struggle with most in real life.
Is it:
remembering doses
knowing whether you’ve already taken it
prescription refills
medication changes
different schedules on weekdays vs weekends
Interested in real experiences.

reddit.com
u/Nate881188 — 16 days ago
▲ 1 r/ChronicIllness

What is the most frustrating part of managing medications long term?

I’m curious what causes the biggest day-to-day challenges for people who take medications long term.

Not side effects, but the practical side of things.
For example:

• remembering doses
• knowing whether you’ve already taken them
• injections
• dose changes
• refills
• managing multiple medications

What causes the most frustration for you, and why?

reddit.com
u/Nate881188 — 16 days ago
▲ 0 r/Wegovy+1 crossposts

What has been the hardest thing for you to keep track of while on Wegovy?

Since starting GLP-1 treatment, I’ve realized that losing weight is only one part of the journey.
The harder part for me has been staying organized:
• remembering dose days
• knowing when the next dose increase is due
• tracking pens left
• preparing questions for doctor appointments
• seeing how progress changes over time
Because of that, I started building a small iPhone app for myself.
Before I spend more time adding features, I’m curious:
What has been the most annoying thing for you to manage while using Wegovy?
I’d love to hear what other people struggle with and what tools (if any) you’re currently using.

u/Nate881188 — 17 days ago
▲ 0 r/IMadeThis

I kept forgetting my medication, so I built my own app.

For years, I thought medication reminders would be easy.
Just set a notification and you’re done.
Turns out that’s not how real life works.
Meetings run long.
Kids need attention.
You swipe away the notification and tell yourself you’ll take it later.
Then you forget.
After missing my own medication more times than I’d like to admit, I decided to build something myself.
So I created DoseSimple.
The goal wasn’t to build the most advanced health app.
The goal was simple:
👉 Remember to actually take your medication.
I focused on:
• Simple reminders
• Clean design
• Fast setup
• No unnecessary complexity
It’s now live and has grown to 32 users so far.
Still tiny, but seeing real people use something I built has been incredibly motivating.
I’d genuinely love feedback from this community.
What would make an app like this useful for you?

u/Nate881188 — 17 days ago
▲ 2 r/AppStoreOptimization+1 crossposts

Launched my first iOS app. 32 users so far. What should I focus on next?

Hi everyone,
A few months ago I built and launched my first iOS app, DoseSimple, a medication reminder app.
Getting the app built was actually the easy part.
The hard part has been finding users.
Right now I’m at 32 users, completely organically, and I’m trying to figure out what matters most at this stage.
A few questions for people who have already gone through this:
What helped you get from ~30 users to your first 100?
Was App Store Optimization worth the effort?
Did Reddit actually convert into users?
What marketing channels worked best for a solo developer?
I’d love to hear what worked (and what didn’t) for you.
Thanks!

u/Nate881188 — 16 days ago
▲ 1 r/Appstore+1 crossposts

I made DoseSimple — a privacy-first supplement & GLP-1 tracker for iOS

Hey r/IMadeThis,

Solo founder here. Just shipped DoseSimple to the App Store after

8 months of nights-and-weekends building.

It's a supplement, medication and GLP-1 therapy tracker for iPhone

and Apple Watch. The angle I wanted to solve: most trackers show

you the checkmarks (did you take it?) but never the context (what

is your routine actually doing to your recovery?).

DoseSimple reads your Apple Health data (sleep, HRV, recovery) and

shows your supplement stack next to those numbers. The weekly

reflection runs fully on-device through Apple Foundation Models —

no cloud, no account, no data leaves your phone.

A few things I'm proud of:

* Whoop/Strava-style design — wanted to escape the "medical

software from 2014" look that dominates this category

* On-device AI for weekly reflections (no OpenAI round-trips)

* Full Apple Watch app with Live Activity on the Lockscreen

* GLP-1 therapy support — Wegovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro titration

with PDF export for doctor visits

App is currently German-only (launched in the DACH market first

to ship something focused instead of half-finished translated).

English version is on the roadmap.

Honest stats so far: ~20 active users, <100 downloads, but a

weirdly high 15%+ App Store conversion rate (industry average is

2-5%). The listing works — now I need to learn acquisition.

Site: dosesimple.com

Any feedback welcome, especially from anyone who's shipped a

health-adjacent app and dealt with the "not a medical device but

adjacent to medicine" tightrope.

u/Nate881188 — 1 month ago