How I made a paid Mac app in 11 days with Caude – without writing a single line of code
Claude helped me vibe-code a Mac app and pass Apple’s review in less than two weeks. Come with me on my journey from idea to purchasable App Store product.
On Sunday, September 20, an idea for a Mac app surfaced. One week later, on September 27, the completed app was submitted to Apple, which accepted it and made it available on the App Store four days later. This story illustrates the impact of AI on iPhone app development and how the author found it enjoyable. The journey began 30 years ago with a library of icons, starting with Icon Factory for HyperCard, which won several awards.
Later, in 1997, the company released Icon Gallery, a boxed product containing over 2,000 color icons. The author found these old icons while decluttering and decided to create an app to browse and resize them. Using Claude Code, the author separated the icons into individual folders within a few minutes, generating over 2,000 PNG images.
In just a few hours, the app was built, allowing users to browse the library and create scaled icons ranging from 32x32 pixels to 1,024x1,024 pixels. The author added features like recoloring, collections, favorites, and iCloud syncing. It took around 502 directives from Claude Code in four days of active interaction to develop the app.
The author emphasizes that vibe coding involves multiple steps and collaboration with AI rather than issuing a single command.
Written by urgent.news from ZDNet's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
