Good morning. It's Monday. I shipped my first app this weekend.
This week: DeepSeek dropped V4 Pro and V4 Flash, claiming the most powerful open-source platform with a 1M-token context window. Google rolled out new inference-focused TPUs taking direct aim at Nvidia. Anthropic's Claude Code hit a $1B run-rate in six months. And every lab is racing toward agents that don't just talk — they ship.
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🎙️ The big picture: I built an app
After 16 years of doing The Sports Hangover with J Dawg, my weekly sports podcast finally has its own app. Download it here. I'm not a developer. Zero coding background. I built it with AI.
That's the short version. Here's what I picked up, in case you've been thinking about building something yourself.
🛠️ How to actually build an iOS app with Claude Code
You need a Mac, an Apple Developer account ($99/year), and Xcode installed. That's the floor.
You don't need to know Swift. The cleanest path for non-coders is React Native via Expo. Claude Code writes the code, EAS Build compiles it in the cloud, you upload the binary through the CLI. You barely touch Apple's tooling.
Building is the easy part. Open Claude Code, write a clear PRD, tell it what you want. Mine came together in a few days of prompting.
Debugging is where the work is. A developer who shipped a Claude Code app in about 8 hours wrote that Claude would get lazy and hard-code hacks instead of fixing real problems. So you babysit it. Don't fully trust the screenshots Claude takes of the simulator either. It will tell you something is working when it isn't, and you'll catch it on a real device.
Use TestFlight before you submit. Bugs that hide in the simulator come right out on a real iPhone.
Then the App Store. This is where I almost gave up. Apple rejected nearly 1.93 million submissions in 2024. A handful of rules I wish I'd known up front:
Starting April 28, 2026, your build needs the iOS 26 SDK or later. Old SDKs get bounced.
A privacy policy is required, and it has to be accessible inside the app itself, not just linked on App Store Connect.
If your app has login, set up a demo account for the reviewers. Skip this and they reject you automatically.
Don't mention Android or Google Play in your listing copy. They notice.
2026 privacy rules are strict. Disclose every piece of data you collect, and get consent before any third-party AI service touches it.
Apple says about 90% of submissions get reviewed within 24 hours. My first version took longer because they had questions. Answer fast and you get back in the queue.
🔥 Hot take
If you've got a podcast, a newsletter, a community of any kind, build an app for it. Not because the App Store is going to make you rich. Most apps barely break even. Build one because it's a channel nobody else controls. Apple Podcasts changes its rules. The algorithm shifts every other week. An app on someone's home screen doesn't.
What used to need six months and a team is now one person, a Mac, and a month.
The Sports Hangover app is live in the App Store now. Reply if you have questions about the build, I'll answer them.
— Michael
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