Beyond Vibe Coding: Publish, Monetize and Market iOS Apps

Building an app got easy. Shipping it didn't.

With Claude Code or Codex, you can have a working iPhone app in a few evenings. That's real, and it's great. But it also means everyone else can do it too. Apple says App Review rejected more than two million app submissions in 2025. The hard part has moved. It isn't the code anymore. It's getting through review, getting paid and getting found.

I built one of my apps in a week. Getting it ready for release and through App Review took two more weeks. This course is about those two weeks, and about everything that comes after launch day.

This is not a Swift course, and I won't teach you to write code by hand. This one starts where the code ends. By the end, you'll know every step between a working app on your Mac and an app that's live on the App Store, takes payments, and has real people finding it.

One idea runs through the whole course

Once your app is live, your job changes. You're not building an app anymore. You're working on an optimization problem, and it fits on one line:

people who see your app × % who install × % who start a trial × % who pay × months they stay × price after Apple's cut − what it cost to get them = what you keep

The app decides two of those numbers. Most developers spend all their time there and never touch the rest. Most lectures in this course move one of these numbers. You'll also see two labels: a pink TRAP marks a mistake most people learn about only after it has cost them weeks or money, and a green LEVER marks a small change that moves one number.

What you'll do, section by section

• Building the App. Set up your Mac and developer account, choose between Claude Code and Codex, and create an Xcode project without the settings you can't change later. Then learn what to tell the AI: a one-page spec, a project memory file, plan mode, one screen at a time. You'll also see the mistakes AI agents make most often in iOS code, and which few events to record before launch.

• Getting Paid. Choose between a subscription, a one-time purchase and ads. Finish the App Store Connect groundwork that quietly breaks purchases when it's missing. Create subscriptions and a free trial, connect them through RevenueCat, build onboarding and a paywall that follow Apple's rules, and test every purchase before a reviewer does.

• Product Page and Submission. Choose your name, subtitle and keywords so App Store search can find you, make screenshots that work in search results, use newer features like the search results asset and custom product pages, fill in the required forms, test with TestFlight, and submit with your subscriptions attached.

• App Review. See how review works, go through the rejections that hit first-time developers most, learn what gets developer accounts terminated, and know what to do on the day you're rejected.

• Organic Growth. Pick one or two free channels and work them properly: short video, Reddit without getting banned, ratings and offer codes, and small creators with their own codes and tagged links.

• Paid Growth. Set up tracking so ad platforms optimize for trials and purchases, not installs. Then try Apple Ads, Meta, TikTok and Reddit, one channel at a time, with ad creatives you can test cheaply.

• Metrics. Read your funnel from first impression to renewal, work out cost per paying customer, LTV, ROAS and payback with net revenue, and decide when to scale and when to stop.

• Wrap-Up. Turn all of it into a plan for your first 30 days.

One demo app, a small food expiry tracker, runs through the course as the example, from the first prompt to the paywall and the product page. Each section also has a short checklist, and you'll get the prompts, templates and spreadsheet that go with the lectures.

How this course was made

I'll be direct about this, because it's part of the story. I recorded every lecture myself: my voice, my face, and what I've learned from shipping apps and charging for them. The production was done by Claude, Anthropic's AI, working through Claude Code. Claude edited my recordings (the cuts, the retakes, the audio cleanup) and designed every visual and animation you'll see: the diagrams, the motion graphics and the screen walkthroughs. We drafted the scripts together from my experience, and I reviewed every word before I recorded it. In the demos, Claude Code writes the demo app's code on screen, because that's how you'll build yours.

So the knowledge, the judgment and the teaching are mine. The way the course looks and moves is Claude's work. That makes the course a small demonstration of what it's about: with these tools, one person can now do work that used to need several people. What the tools can't do is decide what to build, what to charge or which mistakes to avoid. That part still comes from experience, and it's the part this course teaches.

Who this course is for

• You built an iPhone app with Claude Code or Codex, or you're about to, and you don't know what comes after it runs on your Mac.

• You can build apps, but you've never set up subscriptions, a paywall or an App Store submission.

• Your app is already live, but few people find it or start a trial, and you want a clear way to find the weakest step.

• You're a designer, product person or founder who wants to put an app idea in front of real users without hiring a team.

• You're about to spend money on Apple Ads or Meta for the first time, and you want to measure it properly.

Who it's not for

• You want to learn Swift and write code by hand. This course doesn't teach that.

• You're building for Android only. Almost everything here is specific to the iPhone and the App Store.

• You're looking for a shortcut. Most of this course is careful, step-by-step work and honest measurement.

Why learn this from me

I'm Barış, a builder. I've spent my career in engineering, building products and leading the teams that make them. I've also published several apps on the App Store, and two of them make money today: a game and an app for kids. Over my career, I've watched a lot of apps go from the first build to launch day. I don't have a studio or a marketing team behind me. I do this work myself, which is why the course sticks to what one person can actually do.

The course doesn't rest on my stories alone. Where it gives you a number, like how many trials turn into paying customers, it comes from current public sources, mainly Apple and RevenueCat's yearly report on subscription apps.

What you need

• A Mac. Xcode only runs on macOS.

• An Apple Developer Program membership (99 USD a year) to publish. Approval can take days, so you'll start it on day one.

• An iPhone is recommended, to test purchases and notifications on a real device.

• A paid Claude plan for Claude Code, or a ChatGPT plan for Codex. Claude Pro or ChatGPT Plus is enough to learn.

• No coding experience. You'll learn to direct the AI and check its work.

Start with the free previews

Watch the free preview lectures first. The first two show you why the hard part has moved and the map of the course. The others are full lectures from the middle of the course, so you can see exactly how it teaches. If the way I explain things works for you, I'll see you inside. Take the course with your own app open next to it: watch a lecture, then do that step for your app before you move on.

Apple's rules change often. When something the course covers changes, I'll update the lecture, and you can always ask in the Q&A.

This course is an independent publication. It has not been authorized, sponsored or otherwise approved by Apple Inc., and it is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Anthropic, OpenAI or any other company named in it. App Store, iPhone, iOS, Xcode, Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT and Codex are trademarks of their respective owners.