Joined October 2012
- Tweets 714
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- Followers 126
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6 Photos and videos
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Feb 11
I spent months building an ASO tool that indie devs can actually afford.
Most ASO tools charge $65 to $2,000 /mo.
I built @applyra for $9.99/mo. With a free plan.
Here's what it does and why I built it 🧵
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Jun 15
Scanned ~117K iOS apps: 1 in 5 use the same keyword in both their title and subtitle.
Apple reads title subtitle keyword field as one set. A repeat is wasted real estate. Use it for a keyword you don't rank for yet.
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Jun 11
New ASO reality post-WWDC 2026: Apple's Personalized Collections ranks by what users "play and engage with", not what they install.
=> A 10K-download app with 30% D7 retention will out-discover a 100K app with 8%.
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Jun 9
Ran the numbers on 149,000 iOS apps tracked on @applyra:
→ 46% haven't been updated in 6 months → 31% are stale 1 year → Only 7.7% shipped an update in the last 30 days
Apple is dialing freshness up as a ranking signal.
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Jun 8
Reminder: Apple treats battery efficiency as a discovery signal. Almost no ASO thread mentions it.
3-min check before your next submission: Xcode → Debug Navigator → Energy. Anything "High" in the background? Fix it.
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Jun 3
WWDC 2026 keynote is Monday. My ASO prediction: Apple ships an AI search layer that ranks apps by what they do, not what their metadata says.
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Jun 2
Since June 2025, Apple indexes the TEXT in your screenshot captions for search ranking.
Your screenshots are now metadata.
Stop writing "Track your goals" in caption #1. Write "Habit tracker with reminders", phrases real people type in search.
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May 31
Apple just added 11 new App Store locales: Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Slovenian.
Each one = a fresh 100-char keyword field. Near-zero competition.
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May 29
Apple now uses an LLM to auto-generate tags for your app from your metadata screenshots. Those tags decide where you appear in "similar apps" and browse.
You're not writing for users anymore. You're writing for Apple's model.
ASO just became prompt engineering.
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May 28
Just queried 122,000 iOS apps tracked on @applyra.
→ 22% ship with NO subtitle → 17% use fewer than 15 of the 30 available chars → Only 29% use the full field
The subtitle is indexed exactly like the title. Most devs are gifting Apple 30 chars of ranking surface, for free.
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May 26
iOS Promotional Text:
→ 170 characters → Sits above the description → You can edit it ANY time without an app review
Most devs forget it exists.
It won't rank you. But it converts the traffic ASO sends.
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May 25
Just ran the numbers on 122,000 iOS apps tracked on @applyra with language data:
→ 59% ship in ONE language
→ 13% in 2–4
→ only 26% in 5
Every locale = its own 100-char keyword field. Its own ranking shot. Single-language apps are leaving free indexing surfaces on the table.
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May 21
Ran the numbers across more than 200,000 apps tracked on Applyra.
Only 9.3% have an App Preview video.
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May 19
Pulled the iOS keyword fields from 200 indie apps I've audited.
Average usable characters out of 100:
→ 76 actually unique
→ 24 wasted on title repeats, subtitle repeats, and spaces after commas
You're paying for 100. Apple sees 76.
Fix it in 5 minutes.
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May 17
Everyone's panicking about the May App Store ranking swings.
My read: not a one-off update. Apple is dialing up review velocity vs total rating.
Apps with 500 fresh reviews are eating apps with 5,000 old 5★ reviews. Stop hoarding reviews. Generate them monthly.
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May 11
Since July 2025, iOS Custom Product Pages can appear in organic search.
Assign keywords to a specific CPP. When users search those terms, Apple shows your custom page instead of the default.
Most apps still treat CPPs as paid-only. They're not.
70 organic landing pages, unused.
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May 6
Translating your metadata isn't localizing.
Germans don't search like Americans in German.
Japanese users don't either.
Same words, translated, won't rank.
Localize the search behavior, not the text.
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May 4
The iOS subtitle is just as indexed as the title.
Most devs treat it like a marketing tagline:
"Your daily productivity boost"
Zero ranking value. You just burned 30 characters.
Treat your subtitle as a second title.
30 more characters of pure keyword real estate.
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May 3
Want to know what Sensor Tower costs? You can't. No public pricing. You have to book a sales call.
For context: small teams typically pay $25K–$40K/year. That's $2K /month.
Built Applyra at $9.99/month.
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May 2
Most devs don't realize this:
Your iOS app description is NOT indexed for search.
You can write the best copy of your life. Apple won't rank you for a single word in there.
Google Play? Opposite. Every word in your long description counts toward ranking.
Same field name, two completely different games.
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