About the service
An app stops being written on release day and starts being kept alive. The platforms ship a new system version every year, store rules change, libraries get security fixes, and none of that waits for a free week in your roadmap. An app nobody has touched for six months rarely looks broken — it simply stops building on a clean machine, starts crashing on the newest devices, and slides down in the store because the recent reviews are all about freezing and lost data. Paying for a rescue operation once a year costs far more than keeping the project in shape continuously, and the rescue always lands at the worst possible moment.
I start the same way every time: with an honest look at what is actually there. I build the project from scratch on a clean machine, read how it is assembled, list the dependencies that have not moved in years, mark the fragile places in the code, and go through the crash reports coming in from real devices. That gives you a short written verdict — what has to be fixed now, what can wait, and what each delay is likely to cost. After that the work runs in cycles: updating dependencies and adding support for new operating system versions, tracking crashes down to a cause and fixing them, cutting cold start time and battery drain, doing the small changes you ask for, then preparing, signing and shipping the next release. I also read the reviews that complain about the technology rather than the product — crashes, freezes, data that disappeared. Those reviews almost always point at one specific defect, and they are the cheapest source of work I know.
Three things I say out loud before we start, so that no one is disappointed later. Review times at the app stores are not mine to control: I prepare the release, answer every objection and see it through to publication, but nobody can promise an exact publication date, and I will not pretend otherwise. Crash reports are collected anonymously and only with the user's consent — screen contents, typed text and personal data are never sent along, and where that consent is absent I work with what is available. Dropping support for an older system version is agreed on the share of your users still on it, not on what is convenient for me: I bring the numbers, you make the call.
What the maintenance covers:
— a review of the current state of the project and its build, with a written verdict;
— dependency updates and support for new operating system versions;
— crash triage from device reports, root cause analysis and fixes;
— faster startup, lower battery and traffic consumption;
— small improvements and changes on your requests;
— release preparation and support through store review;
— handling reviews that report technical problems;
— knowledge transfer to your team and a release plan for the quarter.
I start the same way every time: with an honest look at what is actually there. I build the project from scratch on a clean machine, read how it is assembled, list the dependencies that have not moved in years, mark the fragile places in the code, and go through the crash reports coming in from real devices. That gives you a short written verdict — what has to be fixed now, what can wait, and what each delay is likely to cost. After that the work runs in cycles: updating dependencies and adding support for new operating system versions, tracking crashes down to a cause and fixing them, cutting cold start time and battery drain, doing the small changes you ask for, then preparing, signing and shipping the next release. I also read the reviews that complain about the technology rather than the product — crashes, freezes, data that disappeared. Those reviews almost always point at one specific defect, and they are the cheapest source of work I know.
Three things I say out loud before we start, so that no one is disappointed later. Review times at the app stores are not mine to control: I prepare the release, answer every objection and see it through to publication, but nobody can promise an exact publication date, and I will not pretend otherwise. Crash reports are collected anonymously and only with the user's consent — screen contents, typed text and personal data are never sent along, and where that consent is absent I work with what is available. Dropping support for an older system version is agreed on the share of your users still on it, not on what is convenient for me: I bring the numbers, you make the call.
What the maintenance covers:
— a review of the current state of the project and its build, with a written verdict;
— dependency updates and support for new operating system versions;
— crash triage from device reports, root cause analysis and fixes;
— faster startup, lower battery and traffic consumption;
— small improvements and changes on your requests;
— release preparation and support through store review;
— handling reviews that report technical problems;
— knowledge transfer to your team and a release plan for the quarter.
