Writing

Notes from the build process

Engineering, design and product writing from the team - the decisions behind what we ship, and what we would do differently.

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Product

20 Jun 20264 min read

Apple is rejecting low-effort apps. That is good news if you build real ones.

New guidelines name categories Apple will no longer approve unless an app is meaningfully different. The wording is vague on purpose, and it moves risk to a place most teams do not plan for.

Pinkesh Gajera

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Product

13 Jun 20264 min read

Why we will not quote a fixed price before discovery

A fixed price quoted before anyone understands the problem is either padded to cover the worst case or about to be revised upwards. Both are worse for the client than two weeks of finding out.

Pinkesh Gajera

Product

1 Jun 20265 min read

Two million rejections a year is a design constraint, not a statistic

Apple reviewed over 9.1 million submissions in 2025 and rejected more than two million. Roughly one submission in four. Plan as though yours is one of them, because sometimes it will be.

Pinkesh Gajera

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Product

27 May 20265 min read

Privacy is becoming a product feature. Build it like one.

Apple is positioning privacy as the thing that distinguishes its AI from everyone else's. Whatever you think of the marketing, it changes what users expect your app to be able to explain.

Pinkesh Gajera

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Design

18 May 20265 min read

Mobile accessibility: the five things that actually matter

Accessibility audits produce long documents that get filed. In practice a small number of fixes cover most of the real-world impact, and they are cheap if done while building.

Pinkesh Gajera

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Engineering

5 May 20264 min read

If Siri can act on your app, your app needs to be worth acting on

A more capable Siri reaches into apps through App Intents. That makes intent coverage an architectural question, and it exposes every app whose functionality only exists inside its own UI.

Pinkesh Gajera

Product

27 Apr 20264 min read

Push notifications people do not turn off

Permission is granted once and revoked permanently. Most apps spend that permission on the wrong messages in the first week and never get it back.

Pinkesh Gajera

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Design

16 Apr 20266 min read

Liquid Glass was always going to be mandatory. Plan for forced migrations.

The deferral flags were always temporary, and everyone building on Apple's platforms knew it. The useful question is not whether to adopt but how much a forced change costs you when it lands.

Pinkesh Gajera

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Engineering

2 Apr 20264 min read

Choosing a backend for a mobile app, honestly

Managed backend, custom API, or backend-as-a-service. The right answer depends on two questions that have nothing to do with technology, and most teams answer neither.

Pinkesh Gajera

Notes from the build processNotes from thebuild process

Apple is rejecting low-effort apps. That is good news if you build real ones.

Why we will not quote a fixed price before discovery

Two million rejections a year is a design constraint, not a statistic

Privacy is becoming a product feature. Build it like one.

Mobile accessibility: the five things that actually matter

If Siri can act on your app, your app needs to be worth acting on

Push notifications people do not turn off

Liquid Glass was always going to be mandatory. Plan for forced migrations.

Choosing a backend for a mobile app, honestly

Notes from the build process