Burnout, Breakthroughs, and a £1,000 Mistake

After more than three months of solid development work (plus all the website stuff that comes with it), I was properly burnt out. I hadn't taken a single day off since leaving employment. Most days I was putting in 10-12 hours, and even on my "lazy" days I'd still clock 4-5 hours. The grind was real, and it was grinding me down.

Two weeks ago, my brain finally waved the white flag. I needed a break. I'd been toying with the idea of getting back into gaming, specifically survival games, because apparently my idea of relaxation is virtual starvation and zombie attacks. 7 Days to Die was calling my name, but my Mac looked at the system requirements and laughed.

So I did what any sensible person would do: I bought a mini gaming PC. Just a little treat. A well-deserved break. What followed was 7-9 days of doing absolutely nothing but gaming. And I mean nothing. It was glorious... until it wasn't.

By day nine, I knew I needed to snap out of it and get back to work. But every morning I'd tell myself "just a few hours of gaming, then I'll crack on." Next thing I knew it was 4pm, the sun was setting, and I'd achieved precisely sod all. Classic.

This couldn't continue. Yes, I needed a break from work, but gaming wasn't the answer. It was just a very expensive procrastination machine. I'd spent nearly £1,000 on the setup, but keeping it around was only going to end one way. So I gave the whole thing to my nephew, cleared my head, and got back to it. Within a few days I was focused again and back on track.

Did I essentially burn a grand? Yes. But I caught the problem early and dealt with it before it spiralled. Sometimes the best investment is knowing when to cut your losses, even if those losses come with RGB lighting.

BillKit and the Subscription Submission Saga

In my last post I mentioned that BillKit had been submitted to the App Store for review. Well, it finally got accepted. After six submission attempts. Yes, you read that right. Six.

Now, either I'm exceptionally dense, or Apple could do a better job of telling you exactly what's wrong upfront rather than drip-feeding rejections like some kind of bureaucratic advent calendar. Each time I'd fix something, submit again, and discover a brand new issue I apparently should have known about. Fun times.

Here's the full catalogue of my failures:

• Invalid Privacy Policy URL
  Turns out the privacy policy page on my website was throwing a 404. Entirely my fault. Fixed it quickly and moved on.
• No link to privacy or terms on the upgrade sheet
  I hadn't added these to any of my other apps, so I assumed it wasn't needed. Wrong. Added them, sorted.
• No restore purchases button
  This one confused me. The app checks subscription status on launch, listens for changes, and verifies again before showing the upgrade sheet. By the time you see that sheet, your purchase is already restored. But Apple wants a button, so Apple gets a button. Fair enough.
• Missing terms link in the App Store description
  This is where I nearly lost the plot. The terms are already set within App Store Connect. Why would the description also need a link? And here's the kicker: the link I added was to Apple's own terms URL. That's what got it accepted. Madness.

Anyway, lesson learned. If you're submitting an app with subscriptions, here's your checklist:

Your upgrade sheet needs:

• A link to your terms
• A link to your privacy policy
• A restore purchases button

And in your App Store Connect description: add the terms link there too.

You're welcome.

AudiBar's Customer Service Speedrun

AudiBar had a minor fix a few weeks back, but it came with a little customer service story I'm rather proud of.

A customer emailed me at 10pm on a weekday about a broken streaming URL. By midnight I'd acknowledged the issue, fixed it, submitted the update to Apple, and replied to let them know it was sorted. Twelve hours later, Apple had approved it and the customer was up and running again.

That's a two-hour turnaround from "something's broken" to "fix submitted." I'm not saying I deserve a medal. I'm just saying, if anyone's handing them out...

On the less heroic side of things, all the recent updates to the app (new theme, streaming functionality) meant the demo videos were now out of date. So I set aside a day to re-record everything, edit it all together, render the final cut, and upload to YouTube. Glamorous stuff.

While I was at it, I figured I'd freshen up the App Store listing too. New screenshots, new video previews, the works. I actually did the same for BillKit as well. Forgot to mention that earlier. Once you're in "marketing admin" mode, you might as well power through.

90 Seconds to Sell Your Soul

While we're on the subject of videos, can we talk about how painful App Store previews are? Especially when you don't have a marketing team to handle it all for you.

For YouTube, I always render at 1080p and 60fps. For larger apps like BillKit, the demo often runs to about five minutes, and that's with the video sped up to double speed.

The App Store is a different beast. You get three preview slots, each capped at 30 seconds and rendered at 30fps. That gives you a grand total of 90 seconds to work with. Fitting a five-minute video into 90 seconds is basically impossible, so you end up agonising over what to cut and what to keep. Speeding things up to 4x helps. Somewhat.

In the end, you just have to do what you can. Focus on the main selling points and showcase them as best as possible. Nobody's watching your App Store preview thinking "I wish this were longer."

Oh, and a quick note on that 30-second limit. Apple's validation could really do with some work. I submitted a video that I knew was 30 seconds. Rejected. After far too much head-scratching, I discovered it was actually 30.1 seconds long. Would it have killed the system to tell me that? Something like "Maximum: 30s. Yours: 30.1s" would have saved me a lot of time and a few headache tablets.

The Old Chestnut Finally Cracks

Kanodo. Ah yes, this old chestnut.

You may recall from my last post that I hadn't touched this app in months and had no idea what I was going to do with it. Well, I've made a decision. Actually, I've done more than that. I finished it.

I know. I'm as surprised as you are.

Here's what I crammed into this week to get it over the line:

• Completed the final changes and prepared the App Store submission
• Wrote markdown documentation and user guides, complete with screenshots
• Built the website and added all the guides and promotional material

The website is now live and the app has been submitted to Apple for review. Fingers crossed it doesn't take six attempts like BillKit did, but I've learned my lessons there. Terms links everywhere. Restore buttons whether they make sense or not. The works.

Getting all this done took the best part of the week. The most time-consuming bit? The documentation. Writing it, formatting it, making it actually useful. It's a tedious process, but it's worth the effort. Nobody wants to download an app and then feel abandoned.

Codel Housekeeping

And finally, a few updates to this very website you're reading.

I've given the project details page a bit of a facelift: screenshots have been pulled out of the breakdown and into their own gallery section, video demos are embedded for projects that have them, and I've split the app breakdown and change log into tabbed content so it's not just one endless scroll.

I also tweaked the home page and project list to order everything by last updated rather than alphabetically. Because let's be honest, sorting by name made zero sense.

Wrapping Up and Winding Down

So that's it for 2025.

I'll put up an end-of-year post after Christmas, just before the new year rolls in. Expect a full rundown: accomplishments, key lessons learned, site visit stats, app downloads, expenses, revenue, and maybe a few hidden gems and takeaways along the way. For now, the apps are going into maintenance mode. I'll only be touching them if bugs get reported or users request features. The reason? January is marketing month.

Right now the numbers are low across the board, and I genuinely don't know which app to focus on. So the plan is to promote all four and let the data decide. By the end of January, I should have a much clearer picture of where to put my energy going forward.

Whatever you're celebrating this time of year, I hope you get some proper rest, good food, and time with the people who matter. If you've been grinding hard like I have, give yourself permission to switch off for a bit. Just maybe don't buy a gaming PC to do it. Trust me on that one.

Thanks for reading, and here's to a fresh start in 2026. See you on the other side - Clive.