User Profile

I have an iPhone app that was created in Xcode that downloads some data from Google Firebase (Firestore). Today I got a scary email from Google Firebase (as seen on the screenshot below). I'm not an expert on Google Firebase and honestly don't understand what this means. Two questions: Does this mean our database is publicly available on the surface web (so for example search engines can crawl/index it)? What do I do about this? Extremely thankful for any help!

I'm extremely frustrated with Apple's unfair app review process. To make a long story short, for every app I've ever submitted, Apple has made false accusations about problems with my apps. Some of their feedback has absolutely been legitimate and correct, which I appreciate, but I would say about 50% of all "feedback" I've ever received has turned out to be objectively wrong. In some cases, the App Review team's gaslighting has been so strong that I have had to submit screenshots of code as proof that their accusations were completely wrong, after which they have had to accept the app. In one instance, they have claimed that one of my apps would not be allowed on the App Store at all, and when I link to multiple other apps that works EXACTLY the same way, the App Review team love to point out that you are not allowed to compare yourself to other apps. To be clear, I'm an indie developer and I'm not even comparing myself to apps from large corporations or any popular apps at all (since it's well known they get the VIP treatment), all apps I have compared myself to are from small, unknown indie developers such as myself - so I'm only comparing myself to developers in the same category as me. Telling developers that they are not allowed to compare themselves to other developers is VERY ethically problematic, imagine doing that to minorities in real life. I'm a minority in multiple ways, and I'm very worried about the ethics and moral at the App Review team. When I ask why they reject my app, but approve many apps that were recently released that works EXACTLY the same way as my app, I either get no reply at all or they tell me that I can't compare myself to others. Submitting appeals to the App Review Board doesn't help either. To be completely transparent with you, it has been very hard and draining on my mental health to have this invisible wall consisting of gaslighting that the App Review team has set up for me. It just doesn't make sense... The app review process is unfair, inconsistent and problematic, and it should be a serious eyebrow-raiser when Apple's App Review team can't explain why some small indie developers get approved easily while others get rejected. Especially since it seems like the pattern is that those who get rejected are humans in various kinds of minorities, as evidences by some other threads on this topic.

I'm developing an iOS app that displays store locations on a map using Apple Maps (MapKit). I've limit the number of icons that can be displayed on the map to 100, but there's still huge performance issues and the app is very laggy even on modern iPhone models. What's the best practice when displaying a large number of icons on a map, should the icons be in PNG format with a small resolution (~10kb) or should the icons be vector (SVG) for best performance? Should I use the MapKit framework for iOS 17 or the UIKit approach?

If I have built an iPhone (iOS) app in Xcode and want to send it to external testers but some of them don't have access to an iOS device like an iPhone, will they be able to install the iOS app via TestFlight on their Apple Silicon M1 Mac (macOS) instead? Or does TestFlight only allow installs on the target OS?

New Apple Developer here, I've built my first iOS app in Xcode and wants to get it onto some friends' iPhones to do some external testing and give me some feedback. I've read the Apple Developer documentation on how to use TestFlight, but it's not understandable since step 1 is entering information about the app in App Store Connect and step 2 is uploading the app to App Store Connect? Can someone please write some easy step-by-step directions on how to get an iOS app from Xcode onto external testers' iPhones for a first-timer in 2024? Thank you so much!

Does anyone have the link to a keynote where someone from Apple speaks about or explains non-renewing subscriptions in detail? I know what non-renewing subscriptions are, they are basically an in-app purchase with an expiry date. However, I want to better understand why I need to be the one that builds in the expire functionality in the app and why I need to handle things like how it should work if the user buys a new device before the period is over for example. Why can't Apple handle this stuff?

I have an app that got approved yesterday and is now available on the App Store. When I look at the app in App Store I noticed there's a misspelling on one of the preview images (screen shots) of the app. The misspelling is not in the app itself, but on a promotional subtitle on one of the preview image. However, when I go into App Store Connect everything on app page is greyed out, so I can't change screen shots, description etc. It says "Ready for Distribution" in the top left corner even though the app is already released. I thought you were able to change these things without uploading a new app version from Xcode, so why can't I change any information?

To any individual developer who filled out the Digital Services Act form who lives in the EU: what did you send them as proof of identity (passport, driving license, other form of ID?) and how long did it take them to approve or reject your Digital Services Act form?

Two separate app projects need maps or navigation: Offline map: offline vector map of small city needed within the app (avoiding any online connection after the app's install). Apple Maps requires map tile download after installation. What is an alternative solution? Navigation: An app with a list of locations where we don't want to build-in maps or navigation. Would it be possible to allow the user to click on a location, app copies GPS coordinates, and opens default iOS navigation app and navigates from there instead? Working in Xcode with Swift and SwiftUI.

I'm working on an app for macOS where it would be very useful to display the GPU (graphics card) workload usage as a percentage. CPU usage monitoring is easy, but GPU monitoring on Apple Silicon is next-to-impossible. Apple only seems to give us our app’s GPU usage which is not what we want, since we want to total GPU workload for the whole system. I'm using the latest version of Xcode and Swift, any ideas how to achieve this?