Hi guys. I’m so psyched that I finally submitted my first app to App Store. This one took me around one month to design/develop/draw, and I’m pretty satisfied of the outcome. I really hope you guys would enjoy it as much as I do.
In this article, I want to share what I did to make all of this happened in two parts.
1. Design.
2. Some tips on submitting your app to App Store.
Design
Before I proceed, bear in mind that I’m not a professional UI/UX designer. Though I think I did a pretty solid work in this app, I didn’t have any certified training. Everything is kind of just on top of my head. With that being said, please don’t take my words for it, I can only give you some advice. Here’s a quick walk-through of my app.
Because I’m so broke, aside from the Apple developer’s annual fee, everything I used is basically free. For example, I used Figma to design my app. Though Figma has paid options to unlock more functionalities, I feel like the free starter one is enough for most of the circumstances.
As you can see from my screenshot, I used Figma to make some of my buttons images. And, on top of that, you can also use Figma to make App previews, which is the best feature in my opinion. To make App previews like my article’s thumbnail, all you need to do in Figma is to add iPhone mockups (there’re a lots of free mockup samples on the internet, just clone it to your Figma.) and a plugin called Angle Mockups.
Now that you have your iPhone mockups and your plugins all set up, you’re almost finished. Take my iPhone 12 mockups for example, you should see something like this:
Next, you need to create a frame and put your screen shot in it. (iPhone 12's frame is the same as iPhone 13’s). Like this:
Finally, put your screenshot in the iPhone mockups using Angle Mockups (select the “Change This” layer in your mockup and select “Plugins → Angle Mockups”). Like this:
Hit apply and done. You can create your iPhone mockups for your app previews and other designing files.
Submitting Your APP To App Store
Here’s a Sean Allen’s video that helps me set up my account and gets all the TestFlight going.
There are still a few things that we should keep in mind before submitting our app to review.
First and foremost, what is Support URL? On App Store Connect, it says “A URL with support information for your app. This URL will be visible on the App Store.” I thought I have to build a webpage for my app, which is a skill I have yet to require, but it turned out that it’s actually pretty simple. I searched google and a lot of people say that Apple basically just needs you to provide a website for users to contact you if something went wrong, or just to give feedback. Thus, the best(FREE) way is to just create a facebook fan page for your app. And voila, I passed the review.
But if you really want to create a website for your app, there is also a FREE way to do so, which is actually my backup plan. That’s Wix.
You can create an account for FREE and set up your website within seconds. It even automatically generates all the texts on the site. There are a few premium plans as well which can let you host your custom domain (this can be really handy if you want to add app-ads.txt to your domain.)
Speaking of app-ads.txt, there is also a FREE website that help you generate one if needed. (Yep, I’m that broke. lol.)
Last but not least, how to get a FREE privacy & policy page for your app.
And that’s probably all you need to set up everything. I might do another article introducing my app. I’m not sure. We’ll see. Ciao for now.
