Notes on shipping listings.
Practical, no-fluff writing on screenshots, ASO, AI tools, and shipping software people actually download — from the makers of ShotCanvas. A new post most mornings.
How long does App Review actually take?
Apple clears 90% of submissions in under 24 hours; Google's official line is "up to seven days." Neither average is the number that bites you — the tail is, and most of the tail is self-inflicted.
AUG 5, 2026Updating your App Store page without shipping a build.
On iOS, fixing a description typo means a version bump and a full App Review pass — yet 170 characters of your page update instantly. What each store locks to a release, what it doesn't, and the workflow that falls out.
AUG 4, 2026Reasoning tokens: the part of the answer you never see.
The newest AI models think before they answer — in private tokens billed at output rates that can silently starve the visible response. Which models spend them by default, and the two settings that keep them in check.
AUG 3, 2026How we chose our brand color (twice).
Our first accent scored 1.1:1 contrast against our own background — invisible where it mattered most. A post-mortem of the acid-lime era, the champagne-gold rebrand, and the accent-system checklist we kept.
AUG 2, 2026Underpricing kills more indie apps than bad code.
A cheap price buys no search placement, no conversion bump, and no goodwill — it just caps what any user can ever pay you. The actual arithmetic of $0.99 pricing, and how to raise yours without a riot.
AUG 1, 2026Icon design for developers who can't draw.
A strong app icon isn't an illustration — it's one concept, a clean silhouette, and one color decision. The geometric method, the per-store spec, and the four ten-minute tests that catch a weak icon before launch.
JUL 31, 2026Can a screenshot get your app rejected?
Yes — App Review reads your marketing, not just your binary. The Guideline 2.3 rules that actually catch careful developers, and the quiet penalty Google applies instead of a rejection email.
JUL 30, 2026Why your AI keeps making things up.
It's not bad training data. OpenAI's own 2025 research found the real cause: benchmarks grade like a multiple-choice exam, and a confident wrong guess scores better than an honest "I don't know."
JUL 29, 2026Apple lets you run 10 screenshot sets per keyword. Most run one.
Apple Search Ads lets you bind different screenshots to different keyword themes, up to 10 sets per ad group — and Google's App campaigns reward the opposite strategy. What Creative Sets actually do, and where to start.
JUL 25, 2026Your app is live in 175 regions. Your listing speaks one.
Apple supports 50 listing languages, Google Play over 130 — and if you don't translate, Google machine-translates you anyway. Where localization actually pays, and the free keyword field hiding in the US storefront.
JUL 24, 2026Apple gives you 3 video slots. You're using zero.
App preview videos autoplay in the first slot of your App Store page, ahead of every screenshot — and Google Play autoplays a promo video too. What each store actually requires, and whether it's worth your time.
JUL 23, 2026Why your AI keeps blowing the 30-character limit.
LLMs don't see letters — they see tokens. The actual mechanism behind AI-generated App Store subtitles and keyword fields landing over the limit, and the fix that actually holds.
JUL 22, 2026Your app has 30 free characters. Most waste them.
Apple's subtitle field sits under your app name, gets indexed by search, and is shown to every visitor — most listings leave it blank or burn it restating the title. What to put there instead.
JUL 21, 2026The 90% discount hiding in your API bill.
Anthropic and Google both discount repeated prompt tokens by roughly 90% — and most indie AI apps have never turned it on. What prompt caching actually does, and the one structural rule that decides whether you get it.
JUL 20, 2026Apple lets you upload 10 screenshots. Stop at 6.
Apple allows 10 screenshots per device size, Google allows 8 — but only the first one to three ever render before a tap. What actually earns a slot, and what's wasted.
JUL 19, 2026Apple doubled your screenshot slots. You're using one.
Apple doubled Custom Product Pages to 70 last October; Google allows 50 Custom Store Listings. Almost no listing uses more than the default. What each feature actually does, and where the extra slots are worth spending.
JUL 18, 2026You're asking for ratings at the worst possible time.
Apple gives you three rating prompts a year; Google won't even say how many. Most apps burn them on a launch counter — when to actually ask, and what each store bans.
JUL 17, 2026Nobody reads your app description. Google does.
Apple's search algorithm never indexes your description — Google ranks you on yours. Same field, two completely different games, and most listings play the wrong one on both stores.
JUL 16, 2026Both stores will A/B test your listing — for free.
Apple and Google both ship a native A/B testing tool for your product page, and most indie listings have never run one. How both actually work — and the first test worth running.
JUL 14, 2026Why your AI keeps forgetting.
Twenty minutes into a long session, it drops a rule you set at the start. The actual mechanism behind context windows — and the habits that fix it.
JUL 13, 2026The 100 characters most developers throw away.
Apple's keyword field is the only listing text users never see — and the worst-filled. The five ways it gets wasted, and the ten-minute rewrite.
JUL 11, 2026What it actually costs to ship an app in 2026.
Developer accounts, store commissions, the 15% discount most indies miss, and the launch cost nobody budgets for — the honest ledger.
JUL 10, 20267 screenshot mistakes that quietly kill downloads.
Most listings lose the install in the first two frames, in under a second. The seven mistakes that do the damage — and the five-minute fix for each.