Brandon Kessinger

I ship iOS apps and games on my own, and write down what the App Store actually does when you try.

Software engineer in Phoenix. Five years at Amazon, now CTO at a strategy firm. Nights and weekends I run a one-person app studio. The tools below came out of taking two apps through App Store review, with two more behind them, and automating everything that hurt the second time.

Based
Phoenix, AZ
Live
2 apps
Team
1
On the bench
2

Tools for people shipping iOS apps

two free, one paid

appstore-doctor

free

It reads your App Store Connect state and tells you what is actually wrong: a version that looks submitted while nothing holds it (that one cost me eighteen days), products stuck in the wrong state, a missing analytics report. It is GET-only by construction, so it cannot change a listing even by accident.

ios-release-kit

free

The fastlane lanes I use for every release: signing that survives a certificate wipe, TestFlight pushes, submission with in-app purchases attached correctly, and analytics report requests you have to create before launch rather than after.

ios-bootstrapper

$149

Everything above, plus the scripts, CLI and agent skills that take a project from a plan to a TestFlight build or an App Store submission by prompting Claude Code, instead of by learning fastlane, code signing and App Store Connect first.

What I have shipped

the receipts

CardHabit

live on the App Store

A daily challenge app built on trading card mechanics. Five cards dealt each day, you commit to the ones you will actually do. App Store · cardhabitapp.com

Lab Tycoon

live on the App Store

An idle tycoon game about running an AI startup. Train models on questionable data, ship them before they are ready, raise absurd rounds with a straight face. App Store · Jackrabbit Games

Late Fee

in beta

A video store tycoon set when renting a tape was the whole evening. Shipping this year.

Haunt Tycoon

in build

Build a haunted attraction, then look at the photo of your guests on the way out.

Writing

All posts

A submission can read as queued while nothing holds it. A signing error usually names the wrong cause. Analytics undercount, and every rate you compute from them is wrong until you find out why.

Read the notes