[3D30497420]

I'm doing something very similar (creating my own apps for personal use), but I'm creating iOS apps primarily.

Here's what bugs me: I cannot permanently install my apps to my iPhone because of Apple's walled garden. I need to reinstall every 7 days and constantly re-confirm that I am a "Trusted" developer.

I know I can pay Apple 100 USD a year for a developer account, but I bought this phone outright 7 years ago, I own it. (Obviously, I clearly don't in this case.) /rant

[beoberha]

I had never written an iOS app until a couple months ago and was initially very put off when I hit the same wall. The alternative is to host on a cheap VPS and find some way to prevent other people from using your app. When you cost it out, it's close enough to the 100 bucks a year for the Apple account. However, the kicker for me is the side loading process. Way too much headache compared to a deploy script that has my changes running nearly instantly.

[theshrike79]

Are you using features that can't be replicated with a PWA?

[3D30497420]

I actually created a PWA first, but it was just even more rough around the edges than the vibe-coded iOS app.

I wanted something that felt like an app, so would use iOS design elements, have widgets, use on-device storage (for offline use), etc. Apple, very intentionally I believe, makes a lot of these things harder than they need to be.

[zem]

this is the primary reason i've never even considered buying an iphone.