A solo developer shares the process of building and shipping a niche iOS app for finding French highway rest stops in under two weeks. The post covers the use case motivation, MVP scoping decisions, UI choices using native SwiftUI and MapKit, an offline-first data strategy using community-sourced open data, AdMob monetization experiments, and post-launch results (~1000 downloads, €0.20–0.70/day in ad revenue). Key learnings include MapKit being more capable than expected, AdMob being unpleasant to integrate, and the offline data approach proving viable given how rarely highway data changes.
Sort: