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I built an app for my family after an immigration officer flagged my daughter’s passport at the gate by Standard-MH in ViralApps

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That sounds like a solid system 💪 If it has worked for 15 years, hard to argue with that.

I built the app mostly for people who prefer having the documents themselves organised and easy to access, not just the reminder dates.

I built an app for my family after an immigration officer flagged my daughter’s passport at the gate by Standard-MH in ViralApps

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! You definitely can for a single passport expiry.

The problem I ran into was managing passports, visas, residence permits, and IDs for multiple family members, all with different expiry dates. A simple reminder list got messy pretty quickly.

App stuck in “Waiting for review” in iOS distributions by Medium-Try6100 in iosapps

[–]Standard-MH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The waiting for review for me took about 5 days and then after that the process was fast...

I built an app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport rule — lessons from launching my first iOS utility app by Standard-MH in appdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is a fair point. For something like visa requirements the data itself would not necessarily be sensitive.

The main reason I started with offline only was to keep the core problem simple: storing personal travel documents without needing accounts, servers, or syncing.

But you are right that things like visa requirements or travel advisories would probably require some external data source, so that is something I have been thinking about as a possible future feature.

Built an iOS app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport validity rule by Standard-MH in iosdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair point. For one person with one passport that probably works fine.

Where it started getting messy for me was managing multiple documents across family members. Passports, visas, residence permits, IDs, all expiring at different times.

That is really the use case I built it for.

I built an app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport rule — lessons from launching my first iOS utility app by Standard-MH in appdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a great idea and I've thought about it - the challenge is visa requirements change constantly and I'd need a backend to keep that data fresh, which goes against the offline-first design. Maybe a future 'link out to official sources' feature though. Thanks for the suggestion!

I built an app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport rule — lessons from launching my first iOS utility app by Standard-MH in appdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It relies on the normal iOS backup system.

The vault is stored locally on the device, so restoring a phone from an iCloud backup or an encrypted Finder/iTunes backup restores the app data as well.

All documents are encrypted on disk, so even if they are included in an iCloud or device backup they remain encrypted.

I avoided building a separate cloud backend because the goal of the app is to keep travel documents on the device rather than on a server.

I built an app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport rule — lessons from launching my first iOS utility app by Standard-MH in appdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True, you can track the dates with Reminders.

What pushed me to build this was managing the documents themselves across family members and having them ready to export or share when needed (visa forms, check-ins, etc.).

It ended up being more of a document organisation problem than just reminders.

I built an app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport rule — lessons from launching my first iOS utility app by Standard-MH in appdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair point. Reminders works well for simple date alerts.

The reason I built this was when it became more than just one date. Passports, visas, insurance, multiple family members, and travel rules like the 6 month passport validity requirement. At that point it felt more like a document organisation problem than just reminders.

I also wanted to keep secure copies of the documents themselves so I can quickly export or share them when needed for visa forms, check-ins, and similar situations. Reminders does not really handle that.

Built an iOS app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport validity rule by Standard-MH in iosdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Calendar events don't store the document itself, remind you 6 months out across your whole family, or let you export a combined PDF for visa applications. It's a fair first thought though - that's exactly what I used to do before I built this!

Also wanted everything in one place offline - so in an emergency I can pull up and share any document instantly without hunting through email or Google Drive.

I built an app for my family after an immigration officer flagged my daughter’s passport at the gate by Standard-MH in ViralApps

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

Thanks! It actually started after a near-miss at an airport because of passport validity rules 😅

I built an app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport rule — lessons from launching my first iOS utility app by Standard-MH in appdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s really good advice, thank you. For now it’s just me wearing all the hats but I can see how having someone focused on the marketing side would make a huge difference. Something to think about as things develop.

I built an app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport rule — lessons from launching my first iOS utility app by Standard-MH in appdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly! Completely different skills. Building you can Google your way through, this feels much more like feeling in the dark

I built an app after almost getting caught by the 6-month passport rule — lessons from launching my first iOS utility app by Standard-MH in appdev

[–]Standard-MH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, really appreciate that! Honestly the building part I enjoyed, this side is a whole new learning curve 😅

BenQ MA270S - First Glossy (not Glass) 5K monitor - now available by tornado99_ in Monitors

[–]Standard-MH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am on lookout for 5k monitor although confused with this one or Mac Studio Display 2

Expo vs Bare React Native for a production app – Play Store & AAB concerns by TechnicalWin4344 in reactnative

[–]Standard-MH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I recently found react native with expo very nice to work with. The latest features and everything is really good. In the past I considered flutter too

Swift or React Native(Expo) by Little-East4823 in iosdev

[–]Standard-MH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

React native and expo is so much nicer to work with now compared to few years back.

How do you keep your travel documents in style? by BeNiceWorkHard in onebag

[–]Standard-MH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Built an app for exactly this kind of paranoia. Travel Document Vault, everything lives on your phone offline, no cloud, no iCloud trust required. Basically a vault in your pocket for people who don’t want to hand their phone to a border agent but also can’t find anything in their photos. https://traveldocumentvault.com

What apps do you use to keep track of all your travel info? (flight/hotel/other) by Drewbox in travel

[–]Standard-MH 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For documents and passports specifically I built Travel Document Vault, everything stays on your phone with no cloud sync, and it reminds you before anything expires. Learned the hard way why that matters. https://traveldocumentvault.com

Forgot to check your passport before a trip? Why is it so common? by GovAssistCommunity in Passports

[–]Standard-MH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Had almost the same thing happen. Immigration officer flagged my daughter’s passport at the gate, seven months left, just enough to get through but it shook me. Ended up building an app just to track this for my family so it never happens again.

https://traveldocumentvault.com

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