Hello, this is my first time greeting AI Party. I've stopped by to leave a review (disguised as promotion) of developing an iPhone app with the help of AI over the past 3 months.
Although I've written on the promotion board below, since I'm a member who has been just lurking for a long time since the old days, there probably won't be anyone who knows me. Still, I always read the helpful articles that come up on AI Party with gratitude!
1. Background on How I Started
I think I've mentioned this in comments before, but at the beginning of the year I missed the timing to purchase a Mac Studio with 128GB RAM and I deeply regret it. ㅜㅜ Since then, whenever I see DGX Spark promotional posts on here, I keep taking out my card and putting it back. If I weren't such an Apple fan, I would have purchased it long ago... It's really unfortunate and I have a lot of concerns.
2. How Did I Develop It? (feat. High School Senior Exam Mode)
Anyway, this app was developed by mixing 'hand coding + vibe coding' using the three main powerhouses: OpenAI, Gemini, and Claude. Since I briefly worked in app development back in the early days of the App Store in 2010, I'm not completely inexperienced, but Swift was my first time. So every day after work and on weekends, I spent time on it like a high school senior studying for exams.
3. Why Did I End Up Adding a Server?
Since monetization wasn't the initial goal, I wanted to create an app that would run for 'free' if possible. So at first I tried to use on-device VLM, but... since my photo library has as many as 66,000 photos, I couldn't handle it in various ways. ㅜㅜ Ultimately, I had no choice but to add a server and even got involved in backend development. As you all know, LLM APIs incur costs per call, and I didn't have an on-premises serving environment. Instead, I built a VLM API using Ollama Cloud, which has high stability and good user reviews.
4. App Launch Progress
Here's a summary of my app development and launch process:
First few weeks: Developed alone, having fun without realizing time was passing
Middle period: Operated private beta testing (10+ people) through acquaintances with rapid improvements
Launch preparation: After securing a certain level of stability, carefully prepared screenshots and videos (By the way, if you look at my app screenshots, the time is '9:41' and the battery is '100%', which is the default screen that appears when you connect your iPhone to a Mac and take a screenshot. ㅎㅎ)
Review submission: Submitted the app with a nervous heart... and 6 rejections ㅠㅠ
Approval complete: Finally succeeded in app registration last Friday after supplementing the requests with determination!
Storm of updates: But when I actually downloaded and used the app that was on the App Store, I noticed so many bugs... I released 3 consecutive updates. (The good news is that the initial registration review is strict, but update reviews are processed quickly~)
And as the final step... I'm writing a promotional and review post on Damoang, which I visit often.
This concludes my review written 100% by hand. If you're interested, I'd really appreciate it if you could install the app!
▶ Original source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/memora/id6772086536
