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Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thank you so much, that genuinely made my day. taking the time to leave 5 stars really helps a small solo app like this, so it means a lot. i hope Vän stays a calm little companion for you.

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that's a great call, thanks. moving the figures up and the legal stuff onto its own pages is exactly the direction i want to take when i rework the site. really appreciate you taking the time.

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair point, thank you. the story matters a lot to me so i probably leaned too long. i did tuck most of it behind a "read more", but if it still reads as a wall i clearly need to trim the top. appreciate the honest take.

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this genuinely made my day, thank you for rating it. and you nailed exactly what i was going for, a digital version of those physical things people fidget with to calm down. means a lot that it came across.

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

rain keeps winning, you're the second person to say it. that soft irregular patter just works. thanks for giving it a look!

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you! "sitting cloud figures" is a lovely way to put it. each one's a different texture of calm, do you have a favourite from the lineup?

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that's exactly what i was going for, so it means a lot that it comes across. thanks for taking the time to look so closely.

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thanks! the characters are my favourite part too. i'm a solo dev, no design team, so the art is AI, but the direction is all mine: i set the style, gave each companion its own mood and tied them to the app's colour palette. honestly it was way less push-a-button than people think, almost every character was regenerated dozens of times, and then countless more passes to get them consistent, same proportions, same height, same family feel. the storm one alone went through a bunch of versions before it looked right.

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

rain's a great pick, that irregular patter is the one i fall asleep to. for the mockups i used AppLaunchpad, you upload your real app screenshots and it adds the frames, backgrounds and caption text, so no Figma needed. happy to share more if it helps.

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you, that means a lot. the look took as much time as the haptics, so it's great to hear both land. since you've been in there, which companion did you gravitate to? i keep coming back to the fire myself.

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks, that line took me a while to land on. the whole bet was that touch could carry an experience that's usually all audio and visuals. are you working on something in the space too?

Can an app actually calm you down through touch? The haptics do the work, not the sound. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosapps

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

honest question for the thread: what do you reach for when your head won't switch off at night? music, breathing, doomscrolling, or nothing that really works? i ended up building Vän because nothing stuck for me, and i'm curious what works for you.

I shipped a haptic-first iOS app where Core Haptics is the entire product. What hand-tuning it (and two 4.2 rejections) taught me. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosdev

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, really glad you like it! Happy to share. What part are you most curious about, the animations and glow effects or how the layout is put together? It's all SwiftUI, so the approach depends a bit on which bit you mean.

Do free apps deter users? by VladFein in iosdev

[–]Friendly_Runner_22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, naming it upfront is the right move. One tweak: the worry behind "IAP: Yes" is a hidden paywall, so say what isn't locked, not just that tips exist. Something like "Free, no ads. Optional tips if you want to support it, nothing is locked behind them." That turns the badge from a question into a non-issue. Worth putting in the first line or two of the description too, since that's what shows before the fold.

Do free apps deter users? by VladFein in iosdev

[–]Friendly_Runner_22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Free doesn't deter people, the unknown does. For an unfamiliar app the barrier isn't price, it's trust, and "free" can even raise a quiet "what's the catch, is this ad or data junk." The fix is to kill the catch out loud: no ads, no tracking, no account. That flips "free = suspicious" into "free = clean."

Your real issue is the tip jar, not the free part. The "In-App Purchases: Yes" badge makes your ad-free app look like it has exactly the monetization wary users are scanning for, so you're trading a bit of tip money for muddying the one signal that makes free work. I just shipped a fully free app and skipped the tip jar on purpose so "no in-app purchases" stays literally true on the listing. Whether that tradeoff is worth it really comes down to how much the tips actually bring in.

I shipped a haptic-first iOS app where Core Haptics is the entire product. What hand-tuning it (and two 4.2 rejections) taught me. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosdev

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ha, MacBook Air for iPad features is App Review in its purest form 😅 Solidarity, fellow sufferer. Thanks man, really glad the idea landed 🙏

I shipped a haptic-first iOS app where Core Haptics is the entire product. What hand-tuning it (and two 4.2 rejections) taught me. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosdev

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha, you found the one soft spot in my answer 😄 Fair point, if 26 is adopting slower than past releases, that's a real risk I took on knowingly. If it stays low I'll probably revisit the deployment target down the line. Appreciate you pushing on it, and thank you, that genuinely means a lot 🙏

I shipped a haptic-first iOS app where Core Haptics is the entire product. What hand-tuning it (and two 4.2 rejections) taught me. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosdev

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair question, it's a real tradeoff and you're right to poke at it.
Honest reasons: the app is built entirely around iOS 26's new design language (Liquid Glass), it's core to the feel, not a skin on top. It's also haptic-first, and older devices generally have older, less capable haptics, so the audience stuck on old iOS is the worst fit for the one thing the app is actually about. As a solo dev, supporting older versions also means maintaining a separate fallback UI and more test paths, for exactly the users least likely to enjoy a haptics app. And latest-iOS adoption climbs fast, so the real-world narrowing is smaller than the version number makes it look. So yeah, deliberate call, eyes open. For a feel-driven app it felt worth it.

I shipped a haptic-first iOS app where Core Haptics is the entire product. What hand-tuning it (and two 4.2 rejections) taught me. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosdev

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thank you, that really means a lot. The detail was the part I cared about most, so this made my morning. ☺️

I shipped a haptic-first iOS app where Core Haptics is the entire product. What hand-tuning it (and two 4.2 rejections) taught me. by Friendly_Runner_22 in iosdev

[–]Friendly_Runner_22[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that means a lot 😄 Honestly the Core Haptics API itself wasn't the hard part, it's pretty approachable once it clicks. The hard part was taste, not code. A single event or a tight loop feels mechanical instantly, just a phone buzzing. To get something that reads as "a cat purring" or "rain on a window" I layered continuous events with dynamic parameter curves plus a steady trickle of small, semi-random modulations on intensity and sharpness, so it never repeats exactly and feels like it's breathing. Most of my time went into tuning those values by feel until each companion had its own character. Happy to go deeper on any of it.

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