On February 1st I decided to run a small experiment. I gave myself less than 24 hours to build and ship a very simple iOS app, with no launch plan, no marketing budget, and honestly no expectations.
The idea was simple: what if a widget just showed how much of the current season is left? No accounts, no subscriptions, no complex features. Just a calm, minimal widget living on your home screen.
I priced it at $0.99 mostly as part of the experiment. I didn’t even set up proper analytics at first I just wanted to see what would happen if I shipped something small and clean.
A few hours after launch it unexpectedly climbed into the charts, then it slowed down, then it stabilized. As of today, it just crossed 1100 downloads and around $780 in revenue.
It’s not huge, but for something built in under a day, it feels kind of surreal. What surprised me most is that people seem to appreciate small, focused apps without subscriptions or noise.
Now I’m trying to figure out what this actually means. Was it timing? Luck? Or is there still real space for tiny, intentional apps in the App Store?
keini|4 days ago
The idea was simple: what if a widget just showed how much of the current season is left? No accounts, no subscriptions, no complex features. Just a calm, minimal widget living on your home screen.
I priced it at $0.99 mostly as part of the experiment. I didn’t even set up proper analytics at first I just wanted to see what would happen if I shipped something small and clean.
A few hours after launch it unexpectedly climbed into the charts, then it slowed down, then it stabilized. As of today, it just crossed 1100 downloads and around $780 in revenue.
It’s not huge, but for something built in under a day, it feels kind of surreal. What surprised me most is that people seem to appreciate small, focused apps without subscriptions or noise.
Now I’m trying to figure out what this actually means. Was it timing? Luck? Or is there still real space for tiny, intentional apps in the App Store?
Curious what others here would test next.