My First App Is Live on the App Store — And Android Made Me Register a Company

It is out. My first app is on the Apple App Store and I have been staring at the listing longer than I should admit.

A Sudoku app. Of all the ideas floating around in my head — the trading algorithms, the portfolio generators, the wedding photo organizers — the first one to cross the finish line is Sudoku. Originally built in React Native, then rebuilt using Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP). There is a certain poetry in choosing the simplest idea and then rebuilding it from scratch anyway.

If you have been following me, you know I have been using Claude and AI to build apps — and more importantly, figuring out what it actually takes to build a product. Not just an app that runs, but something with a business behind it, something that can scale, something you can hand to a stranger on the other side of the world and it works. The effort required to get there has changed dramatically. I am taking full advantage of that.

What the App Is

Sudoku. Clean, offline, multi-platform — first written in React Native, then rebuilt in KMP. I picked Sudoku deliberately. The rules are fixed, the user expectation is fixed, and there is no ambiguity to hide behind. If it is bad, you know immediately. If it works well, you know that too.

I wanted to ship something real, learn a new framework, and focus on the process of getting an app into people's hands — not on figuring out the product while doing it. The KMP experience has a lot to it and deserves its own article. Coming soon.

I also have other, more complex apps currently in review. There is a fair amount of back and forth happening with those — the review process for apps with more moving parts is a different experience entirely. I will write about them when the time is right. For now, this one is the milestone.

The iOS Submission

Apple charges $99 a year for the developer program. Before I tell you what Google charges, let me tell you what $99 actually buys you.

Here is something I did not fully appreciate going in: the scrutiny scales with how much user data your app touches. Request health permissions, location access, contacts — expect a harder review, more specific questions, more back and forth. A Sudoku app that runs entirely offline and collects essentially nothing? Much smoother path. Apple still reviews everything, but the nature of the review changes significantly depending on what you have declared in your privacy manifest.

I submitted on a Thursday evening. By Saturday morning it was in review. By Sunday the status changed to "Ready for Sale" — except "Ready for Sale" is not the finish line. You click release. It moves to "Ready for Distribution". And then Apple tells you to expect up to 24 hours before it appears on the store.

So I waited. I refreshed the App Store search a few more times than was necessary. And then I found the link — and it was live. I clicked it, saw my own app on the App Store, and I will be honest: the "wow" was out loud. I had built every part of it. I had watched every status change in the console. And it still felt like something that had appeared by magic.

That feeling is something I intend to recreate many more times.

Android, on the Other Hand

Google charges $25. One time. No annual renewal. On paper, a significantly better deal than Apple's $99 a year.

And then there is the 14-day closed testing requirement.

If you have a personal developer account on Google Play, every new app must go through a closed testing phase for at least 14 days with a minimum of 12 real testers before you can request production access. Not a suggestion. A hard requirement, every time, for every new app.

Now here is the exciting part. Finding 12 testers is actually a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with people you have not spoken to in a while. You get to reach out to old colleagues, distant relatives, that one friend who always says "let me know if you need anything" — now you need something. "Hey, great news — I have built an app and I would love for you to be one of my 12 official testers. It is a Sudoku app. You do not have to play it. You do not even have to open it. Just install it and leave it on your phone for 14 days. Think of it as a small digital gesture of support." And if someone's phone runs low on storage and they have to uninstall it? That is a chance to follow up with them again. Community building, really.

I understand what Google is trying to do. The Play Store had a genuine quality problem and this gate reduces throwaway submissions. Fine. But there is no distinction between a developer shipping something real and someone uploading their eighth flashlight clone. Apple reviews it. Google gives you a headcount and a calendar.

So I Registered a Company — And Met Dun & Bradstreet

The 14-day rule does not apply to organization accounts. Only personal ones.

Which brings us back to the price math. Google Play personal account: $25 one time. Google Play organization account: also $25 one time — but requires a registered business and a DUNS number. Apple individual: $99 a year. Apple organization: also $99 a year — same price, same requirement. So upgrading to an organization account does not cost more on either platform. What it costs is paperwork.

Both Apple and Google require a DUNS number — a nine-digit business identifier issued by Dun & Bradstreet, a company founded in 1841. Eighteen forty one. I want you to sit with that. In a world where you can deploy software to millions of devices in an afternoon, the credential you need to prove your business exists comes from an institution older than the telephone.

Getting a DUNS number is free. Standard processing takes up to 30 business days. You can pay to expedite — the expedite option is, naturally, not free.

Now here is where Apple and Google diverge completely, and Apple wins this round without argument.

Apple: Your DUNS comes through, you apply to upgrade your existing developer account to an organization. Same account, same apps, same history — just converted. Done.

Google: You create a brand new developer account. Pay the $25 registration fee again. Manually transfer your existing apps to the new account. Delete your old personal account. Then submit a refund request for the original $25 because the account no longer exists.

That is the official process. I did not make it up.

And once all of that is done — on both platforms — there is a piece of advice circulating across developer forums that you should wait an additional 7 to 10 days for the DUNS data to propagate and sync across Google and Apple's servers before your organization status is fully recognized.

Get the DUNS. Wait for processing. Then wait for the sync. Then you are an organization.

Easier said than done is a significant understatement. But I would still do it again.

What's Coming — And Why It Will Take a Month

The goal is to publish everything within the next month. Not 10 days — a month. Because once the code is ready, the real work is everything around it: company registration, payment setup, account authentication, review processes, the DUNS queue. None of it is particularly hard in isolation. None of it is straightforward either.

But here is the important thing: every single one of these hurdles is one-time. The company is registered once. The DUNS number is issued once. The organization accounts are set up once. Every app I ship after this goes through a much cleaner process on both platforms.

The one I am most excited to tell you about next is Mindful Tennis — built around the mental side of the game, which is where most matches are actually won or lost. More when it ships.

There are others too. Different categories, different problems. I will write about each one as it goes live — the idea behind it, what building it looked like, and what happened after launch. The honest numbers included.

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Download Sudoku — Brain Gym on the App Store

If you want to follow along as the next apps launch — and get the inside view on building products with Claude and AI — drop your details below. I will reach out when something new is live.

Follow the journey — new app launches, behind-the-scenes on building with AI. Email me at arunabh.priyadarshi@gmail.com or drop a comment below.

First app is out. DUNS is pending. Mindful Tennis is close. The next month is going to be very busy.