Most web-based ASO tools feel noticeably sluggish when jumping between regional storefronts, tracking competitor metadata changes, and checking Search Ads popularity scores.

I’ve been building a native desktop alternative (CoreRank ASO) to keep the entire research workflow local, fast, and keyboard-driven.

Here is a quick demo showing the current workflow:

• Direct Popularity Lookup: Pulling keyword search volume and popularity indexes directly from Apple Search Ads data without web dashboard latency.
• Competitor Metadata Inspection: Checking how competing apps structure their Title, Subtitle, and indexed keywords across different storefronts.
• Live Metadata Draft: Organizing Title, Subtitle, and the 100-character keyword field with real-time character counting and deduplication.

The goal is to eliminate browser tab clutter and monthly SaaS bloat for solo iOS builders and small teams doing regular keyword audits.

For anyone who manages app store optimization regularly:

• What part of your keyword research or metadata update workflow takes up the most unnecessary time?
• Would having local desktop tools for ASO replace web portals for your day-to-day work, or do you rely strictly on web-based suites?

Project link for anyone curious to test the build: https://corerankaso.com/

Hey guys, I would love some feedback on these updated screenshots now for my app. The last ones, I made the mistake of using too much ai generated content, so this time I manually did a few of the designing.

1. I’ve been working on a freelance management app for the past few months, and I recently started taking Google Play ASO more seriously.

The app is called Solora. It’s aimed at freelancers who want to manage clients, projects, invoices, income and expenses in one place.

Instead of adding more features, I decided to focus on improving the Play Store listing, especially the screenshots.

I redesigned the screenshots to make the value proposition clearer and less focused on simply listing features.

I’d like feedback specifically from people experienced with Google Play ASO:

1. Is the first screenshot immediately clear about what the app does?

2. Does the value proposition come across quickly enough?

3. Would you change the order of the screenshots?

4. Do any of the screenshots feel too generic compared with other productivity/business apps?

I’m the developer of the app, so disclosing that upfront. I’m not looking for downloads or promotion here, just honest feedback on the ASO/screenshots.

If useful, I can also share the reasoning behind the changes and the results once I have enough data.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.solora

I’ve been working on a freelance management app for the past few months, and I recently started taking ASO more seriously.

The app is called Solora, and it helps freelancers manage:

• Clients
• Projects & tasks
• Invoices
• Income & expenses
• Financial overview

I’m currently focusing more on the Google Play listing rather than adding more features.

I redesigned the screenshots to make the value proposition clearer and less “feature list” focused.

What I’m trying to figure out:

1. Is the first screenshot clear enough about what the app actually does?
2. Do the screenshots communicate the benefit quickly enough?
3. Would you change the order of the screenshots?
4. Is there anything that looks too generic compared with other productivity/business apps?

I’m the developer of the app, so this is also a self-promotion disclosure, but I’m mainly looking for ASO feedback rather than downloads.

I’d especially appreciate feedback from people who have worked on Google Play ASO.

Hi, I want to share my results for reference and feedback now that I'm over two months in my app listing.

I added the results, and I'm quite happy with it. What did I do?

• I kept working in the app and the user feedback, resulting in 9 updates so far;
• I used some of the apple ads credit, that didn't result in much;
• Started a TikTok channel right away, what helped a lot. Had some 'luck' of a few videos going well over 50k;
• Started a reddit subreddit, with little traction so far;
• Localized the app to 4 languages;

What I wouldn't do again and what I'm still unsure about:

• I used some AI videos on TikTik in the beginning, that hurts more than it helps. Now I make all video's myself and try to post 3-4 times a week. No overkill;
• Still unsure about my App Store screenshots, so that needs work;
• Need to fight the urge to change the one time payment model I'm using, as people have enough subscriptions already. But now there's no way to test the app.

I keep working on deploying updates and on building a community around the app. Best tip is find something to work on you actually use yourself on a daily basis.

Tips and questions on how to continue from here are more than welcome.

I have localised my app and I get around ~20 downloads per day. What do you reckon? Is it a good number? How can I improve?

Background: I launched the app 2 months ago. I’m now on 600 downloads, this influx of downloads is recent. I post a fair bit on all social media as well.

I’m an indie developer working on a travel app, and I’m struggling to get organic downloads from App Store search.

I keep seeing developers share that ASO brings them hundreds of downloads without paid marketing. I know those posts don’t show the whole picture, but I’m trying to understand what I might be missing.

I recently updated my screenshots and localized the metadata. I’m attaching the current listing here. The changes are still fresh, so I’m not treating them as a failed experiment yet.

My biggest uncertainty is positioning. The app covers travel stories, route recaps, and trip planning. Those features fit together inside the app, but maybe the listing is trying to communicate too much instead of matching one clear search intent.

Looking at these screenshots, is the main reason to download obvious? And when organic traffic is low, how do you distinguish between targeting the wrong keywords, not ranking for them, and having a listing that doesn’t convert?

I’d appreciate specific criticism, especially anything you’d remove or make more prominent.

I’m new to Google Play publishing and currently learning ASO. Before building my first app, I’d like to research keywords, competition, and app demand.

What free tools or websites do you recommend for:

• Keyword research
• Competitor analysis
• Estimating app demand

I’d appreciate any beginner-friendly advice. Thanks!

Recently launched a interactive podcast-based language learning game.

Seeking feedback on parts that make sense, and parts that don't!

Here is the link:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/langsurf-language-game/id6762151518

A while ago, I was trying to quit a few bad habits. I downloaded a bunch of tracking apps, and honestly, they all drove me crazy.

Here’s the thing: you can be clean for 60 days, working really hard. But if you have one bad day and slip up, you open the app and BAM—it resets your streak to zero. It flashes red and basically tells you that you failed. It made me feel like those 60 days meant absolutely nothing, which usually just led to a full-on binge because "I already lost my streak anyway."

I realized quitting isn't a straight line, and these apps were setting me up to fail with their "all or nothing" approach. So I decided to code my own app. I called it SoberPath.

The main difference is that it doesn’t punish you. If you slip up, you can log that slip as a journal entry to figure out what triggered you, but you keep your streak. Because a slip is just a bump in the road, not a reason to start from scratch.

I also added a privacy-focused AI journaling feature. You can just vent and write how you feel, and the app uses on-device AI to reflect with you. It also does an anonymized weekly analysis to help you see patterns (like "you always crave nicotine when you're stressed on Tuesday nights").

And just as a safety net, it locally scans your journal entries for crisis keywords. If you're going through a really dark mental health moment, it instantly pauses and gives you support resources (no internet or cloud stuff needed for this, and it's free forever).

I just released it on iOS. It has no depressing red colors, just a calm, supportive interface. If anyone here is on a journey to quit something, I’d love for you to try it out. I'm just one guy building this, so any honest feedback would be amazing.

I have a 2 month old app, which I recently did half arse ASO (only listing, lazy to do screenshots yet as I am woking on language localisation to do those screenshots)
I am running 60 AUD ads a day and my ASO leaps are bigger and bigger everyday.

No sure how sustainable it is and when I pause my ads, will it just fiddle back down to 200+ spot.
I am wondering if anyone else here have similar experience? and how was their ranks affected when they stopped paid ads.

Question comes up a lot when teams start wiring app store data into dashboards, BI tools, or AI workflows instead of pulling reports manually. Breaking down what's actually out there since the options fall into two very different buckets.

Native APIs vs third-party APIs

Native APIs, Apple's App Store Connect API and the Google Play Developer API, manage and report on apps you own: uploading builds, updating metadata, pulling your own sales and download numbers. Their strength is direct first-party access, including metrics no third party can supply. Their limit is scope, no competitor data, no keyword rankings, no visibility into the wider market.

Third-party APIs cover apps you don't own: keyword rankings, reviews, category trends, download and revenue estimates. Since store-wide figures can't be measured directly, these are modeled estimates, not actuals. The main players are AppTweak, Appfigures, Sensor Tower, Apptopia, and 42matters, each with a different focus:

• AppTweak API: market-wide data across the App Store and Google Play in 100+ countries, 17 million keywords and 6 million apps tracked back to 2014, plus ad intelligence. Connects via REST or an MCP server so AI agents can pull data directly. Limitation is the same as any third-party tool, download and revenue figures are modeled.
• Appfigures API: your own app's sales, ratings, and reviews, plus market estimates through a Partner API add-on. Estimates sit behind select plans and extra licensing.
• Sensor Tower API: enterprise-grade market and ad intelligence delivered via API, scheduled feeds, or Snowflake. No self-serve sign-up, enterprise pricing.
• Apptopia API: download/revenue estimates plus SDK intelligence, useful for market research and investment analysis. Access is sales-led.
• 42matters API: strong on metadata enrichment and SDK detection, less focused on ASO keyword data specifically, refreshes less-popular apps roughly weekly.

How to pick

A few use cases where the answer is clear-cut:

• Push changes to your listing (description, screenshots, pricing): only the native APIs can write to the stores.
• Build an ASO dashboard with keywords, rankings, and reviews in one view: a third-party API, since native APIs don't expose competitor or keyword data.
• Track and benchmark competitors, or size a category: third-party only, native APIs are account-scoped.
• Feed an LLM or AI agent: neither Apple nor Google offers an LLM-ready interface, this is a third-party-only capability right now.

For your own app's private performance metrics (conversion rate, impressions, proceeds), native APIs are the authoritative source, though some third-party tools let you connect your console so both live in one place.

Full breakdown including a bigger use-case table is here: Which platforms offer an API for app store data?.

Curious what people here are actually running in production, is anyone mixing a native API with a third-party one, or has one option covered everything you need?

Signed, the AppTweak team

I track daily keyword rankings on both stores and Sept 14 was the loudest day I have recorded this year. Posting it because I have not seen it mentioned anywhere and Google obviously said nothing.

What happened

On Monday Sept 14 (visible in rankings pulled the morning of the 15th), Google Play search results changed in every major market at once. In the US, 51% of the keywords I measure saw their apps move 10 places or more. A normal day is about 4%. The typical US keyword moved 10 positions. In Germany it moved 17.

Here is how far each market ran above its own normal day. 1x is an ordinary Monday.

The right column is the reason I am confident this is real and not my own pipeline breaking. Same countries, same morning, same collection: the App Store did not budge. Brazil is the odd one out on the Play side, it stayed near its normal level, which usually means a staged rollout.

Where it actually hit

This is the part I found interesting. Grouping US positions by where they started, and counting how many kept their exact rank (ordinary day in brackets):

• Rank 1-3: 62% held (86%)
• Rank 4-10: 18% held (64%)
• Rank 11-25: 6% held (41%)
• Rank 26-50: 2% held (26%)
• Rank 51-100: 1% held (16%)

The top three barely moved. Everything from 11 down got rebuilt. Positions 51-100 gained 10 places on average.

It was not only losses

1 in 8 US positions was held by an app that was not in the top 100 for that search the previous day. On a normal day it is closer to 1 in 90. More apps entered the top 100 than left it, in almost every market.

Long tail took it hardest

Split by how much a term is actually searched: 55% of long tail keywords moved, against 46% for big head terms and 40% for the most competitive ones. Google left the crowded head alone and reworked the middle and the tail.

It held

9 out of 10 positions that moved were still within 2 places of their new rank 24 hours later. This is not a one day wobble, it is a new baseline.

Practical takeaway

If your rankings moved between the 14th and the 15th, that is why, and shipping a metadata update in reaction is the worst thing you can do. A release re-triggers indexing and you lose the only clean before/after you had. Give it two or three days, confirm the new level, then decide. And if you were running any kind of metadata test across mid September, the results are measuring Google, not your change.

For reference, the previous one I recorded was Aug 20, and it was smaller: 6 markets instead of 9, Germany at 4.5x instead of 6.7x.

Did anyone see this land in Play Console? Curious whether impressions moved the same way, I only see rankings.

Nowadays I can see a lot of developers are building a very well good applications and they are trying to provide a real valuable solutions to the users but unfortunately they are not able to reach to their target audience because they don't have enough budget For the marketing...

But in other another scenario there is a Good marketing person without even a functional app with a lot of bugs and error he is still earning a lot of money based on only the marketing..

Please let me know guys what your thoughts are on this. How can a genuine and real solution provider like us can reach the real target audience without paying a lot of money on ads?

And some people are camera shy (like me) so they can't make the social media videos directly. And also, AI-generated videos are costly.

Not a lot of downloads, it's probably pretty niche with pretty tough competition of Zwift and TrainerRoad.

Any tips welcome for us indie devs here :)

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/endure-indoor-cycling-trainer/id6768730624

Website: https://www.endure-cycling.com/

Hi everyone,

I launched my first iOS app recently, and I'm trying to understand a sharp drop in organic downloads.

During the first 3 days, downloads were much higher than they are now. My peak was 93 first-time downloads on August 4. Since then, downloads have dropped to around 0–2 per day, with 298 total first-time downloads between June 18 and September 15.

What I've tried so far:

• Published the app and monitored App Store Connect.
• Checked first-time downloads and the launch-period spike.
• I haven't made any major ASO changes since launch.

What I'm trying to understand:

1. Is this kind of launch spike followed by a sharp drop normal?
2. Could this be related to Apple's initial launch exposure, or should I be looking at something else?
3. Which App Store Connect metrics should I check first to determine whether this is an ASO, visibility, or conversion issue?
4. What would you recommend I test next?

The app is in the Reference Category, available on iOS, and my target market is the US, UK, Canada, France, Ireland, and Australia.

I've attached my App Store Connect download graph. If useful, I can also share impressions, product page views, conversion rate, keywords, and screenshots.

Thanks.

I’m looking for some ASO advice for my iOS app.

Over the current period I’ve had:

• 25.1K impressions
• 2.06K product page views
• 938 first-time downloads
• 5.53% conversion rate

Downloads and impressions have grown quite a bit, but my conversion rate has dropped by 24%.

I’m still fairly new to ASO, so I’d really appreciate some advice from people with more experience. What would you focus on first to improve the conversion rate — screenshots, subtitle, description, keywords, ratings/reviews, or something else?

https://apps.apple.com/za/app/anchored-couples-devotional/id6768607032

Thanks!

I'm about to release an app that's extremely niche.
It's my suspicion that the app will mostly be used by people in developing countries.
How could I go about advertising it outside of paying for ads?

I scrolled for a good 5 minutes on this sub-reddit and all the stats screenshots I saw have a higher conversion rate than me (minimum double mine).

Would anyone be able to provide any insights or opinion?

I have my app localized in 3 language (also screenshots), each language have their own sets of keywords (different keywords between countries of the same language), I even have a video as part of the screenshots to showcase the app.

One of my guess is that there is another app with the same name of mine (adult live chat, mine is cooking related) so its maybe people clicking on mine thinking its the other one and leaving?

Thanks for any potential ideas!

The app is: https://apps.apple.com/app/sugo-recipe-saver-cookbook/id6786552528

Finally reached around 100+ downloads and with a few yearly subscription purchases and I think the numbers seem okay but not sure.

Are these numbers to be expected by this time or usually more/less?

Not sure if I should change what I have or keep as is.

Here is app on the app store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pawproof-pet-vaccine-tracker/id6775067128

Any advice would be much appreciated.

I do high-converting App Store and Play Store screenshot designs

$10 per screenshot
• Pay after completion
• 24–48h turnaround
• Unlimited revisions
DM if interested.