About the magazine

What the magazine covers, who writes it, how articles are researched and corrected, and how product links and affiliate partnerships work on the site.

App Season is a magazine for people who make mobile apps: the developers who write the code, the designers who decide where the buttons go, the product owners who decide which buttons exist at all, and the marketers and founders who have to get the finished thing in front of people. We write about the work as it is really done, with the settings, file names, numbers and trade-offs left in.

What we cover

Every piece is filed under one or more of seven tracks. Each track has its own page, and the archive lists everything by date.

  • App Design: onboarding, navigation, accessibility, design systems and the small interface details people notice without knowing why.
  • Mobile Development: Swift, Kotlin, cross-platform frameworks, testing, releases and keeping an app healthy after launch.
  • App Marketing & ASO: store listings, keywords, screenshots, paid campaigns and the experiments that show which of them work.
  • Events & Scene: conferences, meetups and developer communities across Europe, with a close eye on Amsterdam, and how to get something useful out of a day away from your desk.
  • Tools & Devices: test phones, laptops, hubs, desk setups and the software app makers use every day.
  • Startups & Business: what apps cost to build and run, pricing, monetization, store fees and small product businesses.
  • Tech Life: careers, freelancing, management, remote work and the ordinary working week in tech.

For quick sums, the Studio has free tools: an app development cost calculator, a store fee calculator, an ASO character counter and a reference for icon and screenshot sizes. If you are hiring outside help, the agency guides explain how to choose a studio and which specialist roles a project needs.

Who writes

Five writers, each covering the part of the job they know from their own work.

  • Sanne Verbeek is a product designer in Amsterdam who now writes full time about onboarding, accessibility, design systems and interface details.
  • Tomasz Wilk is an Android developer from Kraków, living in Rotterdam, who covers Kotlin, cross-platform tooling, testing and devices.
  • Ines Carvalho works in app growth marketing in Lisbon and writes about ASO, store listings, screenshots and paid campaigns.
  • Ruben Mertens is a freelance iOS developer in Ghent who writes about costs, tools, desk setups and working life.
  • Leila Haddad reports on the European app and startup scene from Amsterdam: conferences, meetups, communities and business models.

How articles are made

Research starts with primary sources wherever they exist: Apple's and Google's developer documentation, official standards such as WCAG, and the published pages of conferences and communities. Store rules change often, so character limits, screenshot sizes and commission rates are given as facts at the time of writing, and the date on each article tells you when that was. We don't invent quotes, statistics or prices. When a writer draws on their own projects, they say so plainly and keep the details modest.

Mistakes still happen. If you spot an error, an outdated figure or a broken link, tell us through the contact page. We fix the article, and when a mistake changed what a piece says, we add a short note explaining what was corrected.

Some articles and sidebars link to products and services, and some of those links are affiliate links. If you follow one and buy something, the magazine may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. We also work with other affiliate networks such as CJ, through which we partner with selected advertisers, and some pages carry partner banners.

Commissions don't decide what we recommend. Picks come from specifications and published reviews, never from paid placement, and nobody can pay to be included in an article or to change what it says. When a product slips in quality or a better option appears, the recommendation changes, whatever the old one earned.

Getting in touch

Corrections, tips about events and tools, and story ideas all go through the contact form. An editor reads every message. Pitches can take a while to answer; corrections are handled first.