Founder Playbook · Sub Club by RevenueCat
10 tactics from David Barnard, Jacob Eiting & Charlie Chapman
WWDC 2024: What Apps Need to Know
Watch the full episode“My Indie app, I already implemented all of the media app intent stuff. My understanding is I don't need to do anything. What it does mean is I get to in September market it as if it's a new feature but I don't think I even have to write any code.”
App Intents you already built may automatically plug into Apple Intelligence — no new code required
Apple Intelligence's Siri integration is built on top of the existing App Intents framework. Developers who have already implemented domain-specific intents — media playback, messaging, workout actions — may get Apple Intelligence compatibility without touching a line of code. The biggest opportunity is to spend the summer auditing and expanding intents to maximize how many natural-language requests Siri can satisfy through your app.
“The Paradigm for forever has been open app and then you track somebody through the user experience. Now potentially this shrinks that funnel but grows this other one of like your entry point is a text-based very clear intent entry point into your app. If it gets better over time it might not even open your app.”
App Intents create an intent-first acquisition funnel — you need to rethink monetization for a world where the UI may never appear
When Siri can fulfill a request inside your app without the user ever opening it, the traditional onboarding funnel collapses. Developers need to brainstorm how to surface paywalls and subscriptions in a world where the UI may never appear — including thinking about paywall triggers in intent responses, app deep-link offers, and contextual upgrade prompts when a user requests a premium feature via voice.
“What makes win-back offers so powerful in the wild is that you've got marketing channel access to these people — you send them an email or a push notification. That's what makes win-back so powerful. Apple gets close but then they just miss the fundamental thing that makes something powerful.”
Win-back offers miss the most powerful ingredient: a direct communication channel to lapsed subscribers
Apple's new win-back offers let lapsed subscribers see a comeback deal inside the App Store or on app open — but Apple provides no server-to-server notification when someone becomes eligible, and no way to email or push them directly. The most effective win-back campaigns still require owning communication. Tools like RevenueCat can bridge this by identifying eligible subscribers and triggering your own push or email campaign the moment Apple flags eligibility.
“Now when somebody buys through that custom product page it can deep link into your app to give a customized onboarding. Strava might say okay — you saw an ad about running, you saw the App Store screenshots about running, and now when you open the app you're going to get the runner onboarding not the cycling onboarding.”
Custom product page deep links now thread through to a matching onboarding inside the app
Apple now lets a single custom product page drive a matching deep-link onboarding experience, closing the loop from ad creative to App Store listing to first-session experience. A user who saw a running ad should land in a running-focused onboarding, not a generic one. With up to 35 custom pages available, the approach also provides coarse-grained campaign attribution — enough to attribute channel performance without identifying individuals.
“You can nominate your app for featuring now and it's cool because you get to actually say when these new features are launching, when your 3.0 is launching, and then you get to pitch it to Apple in a more directed way.”
Nominate your app for App Store featuring — Apple now has a dedicated self-serve UI for major release pitches
Apple added a structured featuring nomination flow inside App Store Connect, letting developers flag upcoming major releases and pitch editorial reasons for featuring directly. Previously, this required personal contacts or luck. This lowers the barrier for indie developers to get in front of Apple's editorial team at the most commercially impactful moments — version launches, seasonal updates, or significant feature drops.
“Content creator apps with creator subscriptions — that's currently a huge pain and we get tons of customers coming to RevenueCat: can you solve this? The answer is no because Apple doesn't support it. So Apple is specifically saying they're working on this.”
Advanced Commerce APIs signal Apple is finally opening complex monetization — creator subscriptions and multi-app bundles are coming
Apple's Advanced Commerce APIs, announced at WWDC 2024, explicitly acknowledge that the standard IAP model cannot serve creator subscription platforms, complex SKU bundles, or multi-app content. This is a structural unlock that enables business models — Patreon-style creator tiers, bundled content across apps — that were previously impossible on iOS. Developers building in these categories should register for the partner program early.
“It's a fun platform to experiment but understand if you're trying to make a business this is a really really small audience still. I still think of it like it's a publicly available dev kit.”
Vision Pro is a publicly available dev kit — experiment if you can afford it, but don't build a business on it yet
Apple Watch, at launch, sold far fewer units than the iPhone or iPad yet was seen as a failure only because expectations were so high — Vision Pro is in an even earlier phase. The commercial opportunity is not yet there: hundreds of thousands of units compared to tens of millions for prior platform launches. Developers with bandwidth and financial flexibility can explore creatively, but building a business on it today is premature.
“I really think the AI Revolution shouldn't be feared. Apple's teeing us up — they're going to give us APIs to access their LLMs, the AI features will be able to access your app. I'm a lot less worried about apps getting left behind by this.”
AI won't kill apps — it's creating a new app revolution on a platform that already has context, sensors, and user trust
The mobile device's persistent presence, sensor array, and granted permissions give it context advantages that desktop AI tools struggle to replicate. Rather than displacing apps, Apple Intelligence is designed to route user intent through them. Developers who build with App Intents and adopt Apple Intelligence APIs are positioned to have their app surface at the exact moment a user expresses relevant intent — a new distribution channel on top of the existing one.
“As part of your Strava membership you get 20% off weather up and you can bundle the pricing. If somebody unsubscribes from Strava they're no longer getting that contingent pricing. Apple's baking this in at the App Store level.”
Contingent offers let apps bundle pricing with other apps at the App Store level — a native co-marketing model is now possible
Contingent pricing enables a formalized cross-app discount economy: App A's subscribers get a discount on App B, enforced automatically by the App Store so no backend integration is needed. When the triggering subscription lapses, the discount disappears on next renewal. This creates incentive structures for co-marketing partnerships and bundles previously impossible without custom server logic, opening a new distribution and monetization lever especially useful for complementary-niche apps.
“When you go into App Store Connect you can have one set of iPhone screenshots per language and then one set of iPad screenshots per language — just massively reduced complexity. I can't tell you how many times I tried to submit and it's like you didn't do this and I'm like did what.”
Screenshot requirements cut to one set per language — a long-overdue relief that frees significant release time
Previously, submitting an App Store update required separate screenshot sets for multiple iPhone screen sizes across every supported language — a multi-hour workflow for localized apps. Collapsing to one set per device class per language removes one of the most tedious production taxes on shipping. Developers who managed screenshots manually will see significant release velocity gains.