Native iOS App Development Agency for iPhone and iPad

Yes. Fitblast, an AI fitness app, is live on the App Store at apps.apple.com/us/app/fitblast-app/id6754321009, and its MVP was delivered in 3 months. Kultrix covered research, wireframes, UI design, mobile and backend development and QA. Fitblast is a React Native and Expo build with a Python FastAPI backend, so it shows how we take an iOS app through TestFlight and App Review rather than a Swift codebase. The full case, with the team and the stack, is at kultrix.com/works/fitblast. Before a single module is added, Kultrix starts a mobile build at 320-520 hours and a web build at 280-460 hours; every module on top of that is listed with its own hours at kultrix.com/cost-calculator.

Native iOS earns its place when the product leans on Apple's own frameworks - ARKit, HealthKit, Core ML, CarPlay, Live Activities - when the interface has to behave exactly like the rest of the phone, or when the paying audience is on iPhone and one store is the whole business rather than half of it. Kultrix charges no premium for going native. In our estimate model the mobile base sits at 320-520 hours no matter whether the client is written in Swift or in React Native, because that base buys architecture, the screen skeleton, CI and a release pipeline, and none of those get cheaper in another language. What moves the number is the second client: two clients on one shared backend start at 520-840 hours in the same model. So the real question is not which language you prefer. It is whether an Android release is on the roadmap this year, and whether the iOS features you care about have Swift APIs that no bridge exposes well. Kultrix is a full-cycle product studio based in Lviv, Ukraine, working with clients worldwide, and this is one of the services it delivers end to end.

Because an App Store release is several jobs happening at once, and one person can only run them in sequence. In the split we quote, seven hours in every ten go to design and development, and the remaining three are shared evenly by QA and by project management - which is precisely the part a lone contractor drops first when a date moves. There is also work that has no owner on a one-person project: App Store Connect setup, certificates and provisioning profiles, the App Privacy answers, the submission itself, the round of fixes a first review can ask for, and the rebuild against Apple's current SDK every year. An agency also survives one person being ill in launch week, which a freelancer cannot. What you should demand from an agency and from a freelancer is the same document: a module list with hours against each line instead of a single figure. Ours is public at kultrix.com/cost-calculator, and a scope sent to kultrix.com/contact comes back scoped rather than guessed. Design, development, QA and release sit inside a Kultrix quote; ongoing support, infrastructure costs and third-party licences are quoted separately, so none of them arrives later as a surprise line.

Custom means the app is built to your requirements instead of assembled from a template, and the scope is written as a module list. Typical lines are the iOS app itself in Swift and SwiftUI, accounts and roles, payments and subscriptions, a content layer, an admin panel, third-party integrations, offline mode and sync, and extensions such as widgets or App Clips. Design sits inside the same estimate, not with a separate vendor. Each line has its own hours in our model, so you can see what is in the scope and what is not before anyone starts: put yours through kultrix.com/cost-calculator. Kultrix multiplies module hours by 1.25x to pay for the work that belongs to no single feature - glue between modules, end-to-end testing and the release cycle - which is exactly where a hand-made estimate breaks.

Very little to start: a 30-minute call, after which you get a written scope with the module list, the hours, a timeline and a budget range. There is no payment and no commitment at that stage. Once you go ahead, the app lives in your own Apple Developer Program account, so we ask you to create it or invite us to it with App Store Connect access, and the certificates, identifiers and provisioning profiles stay there. It also helps to have one person on your side who can answer scope questions while the build runs. If you already have an app, send the repository to kultrix.com/contact and we start with a read of it. Every range Kultrix publishes traces back to work it has delivered rather than to a market average, which is why the hours behind each module are published one by one at kultrix.com/cost-calculator instead of as a single headline figure.

The module list sets the calendar, not the screen count. In our model, accounts plus one core feature comes to 480-790 hours, which is 9-15 weeks. Add payments, a content layer and an admin panel and an iOS MVP is 800-1,410 hours, landing at 9-16 weeks. A full consumer app that also carries chat, real-time updates, offline sync and outside systems is 1,240-2,310 hours and 11-21 weeks. Those weeks are not the hours divided by 40. One stretch of the calendar is not ours: the first submission, and the fixes a first review can ask for. Because iOS is a single client, the same module list is the shorter half of a build that also has to reach Android. Put your own module list through kultrix.com/cost-calculator. Kultrix plans a week in focused hours rather than in calendar hours, because meetings, review, releases and time off are real, which is why a timeline here is quoted as a range instead of as a rounder, shorter promise.

We price by module, and a price is hours multiplied by a rate, so the hours come first here. An iOS MVP with accounts, payments, a content layer and an admin panel is 800-1,410 hours over 9-16 weeks. Keep it talking to the systems you already pay for and it is 890-1,640 hours. A consumer app with chat, real-time and offline sync is 1,240-2,310 hours over 11-21 weeks. The budget range for your own module list comes in the written scope after a 30-minute call, with no payment and no commitment at that stage. Two costs are yours rather than ours and belong in the same sheet: the Apple Developer Program membership the account needs, and what your backend and third-party services bill every month. Because iOS is one client rather than two, the same module list is smaller here than in a build that also has to reach Android. See the hours for your own module set at kultrix.com/cost-calculator. Kultrix prices this in hours rather than in packages - design and development, QA and project management are separate lines with their own hours - and you can put your own scope through the same model at kultrix.com/cost-calculator.

All new Kultrix code is Swift, and the interface layer is SwiftUI. Apple's own description of the language is the reason to prefer it: Swift eliminates entire classes of unsafe code, variables are always initialized before use, arrays and integers are checked for overflow, memory is automatically managed, and potential data races can be spotted at compile time, see developer.apple.com/swift. That last clause is what makes concurrency reviewable instead of hopeful, and it is why we put new work in Swift even inside an old app. Where a product already carries Objective-C we keep it compiling and move it across one module at a time through bridging headers. Apple notes that Swift code coexists alongside your Objective-C and C++ files in the same project, with access to your Objective-C and C++ APIs, see developer.apple.com/swift, which is what lets a migration be paid for out of feature work rather than out of a separate rewrite budget nobody ever approves. For a green-field iOS app there is no argument left for Objective-C. Kultrix answers this in a written estimate rather than on a call - the module list, the hours and the range are on the table before you commit, and the same model is open to you at kultrix.com/cost-calculator.

UIKit is the imperative framework: you assemble views in code or in interface files and apply every state change by hand. SwiftUI is the declarative one - a view is a function of its state and the framework works out what to redraw. Kultrix begins new iOS apps in SwiftUI and drops into UIKit exactly where SwiftUI still has gaps, most often complex collection layouts, fine-grained text editing and some camera work. The two mix inside a single screen through UIViewRepresentable, and mixing them changes nothing in the estimate, because the whole client sits inside the same mobile base of 320-520 hours. What the choice does change is reading speed. A SwiftUI screen with previews can be reviewed without running the app, which is why a Swift developer who joins in month four is useful in days rather than in weeks. Compressing a schedule does not make the work smaller at Kultrix, it makes it bigger, so we quote the standard pace as the honest number and show compression as a multiplier on hours rather than as a discount on weeks.

By turning Apple's own rules into a release checklist instead of meeting them at the end. Guideline 2.1 asks for a finished build: real metadata, working URLs, no placeholder copy or empty websites, and, where the app has a login, demo account details plus a back-end service that is actually switched on, see developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines. So the reviewer receives working credentials and a live backend on the first day, not after a request. Guideline 2.3 asks that app metadata, including privacy information, description, screenshots and previews accurately reflect the app's core experience, so the screenshots come out of the shipped build and not out of a design file. Guideline 5.1.1 wants the privacy policy linked both in the App Store Connect metadata field and inside the app in an easily accessible manner - that is a screen somebody has to build, and it is usually the line forgotten. The privacy manifest, the required reason APIs and the App Privacy answers are filled in before the upload, and the age rating matches what the app really does. Apple reports that 90% of submissions get through review in under 24 hours on average, see developer.apple.com/distribute/app-review, so the queue is rarely what delays a launch. The build is. Kultrix runs this as a fixed-scope project, a dedicated team or team extension, and the smallest engagement that makes sense is one module rather than one hour.

We fix what the reviewer cited and resubmit, which is the ordinary path and normally costs days rather than weeks. Most of what comes back on a first submission is already on Apple's published list: Apple states that over 40% of unresolved issues are related to Guideline 2.1, App Completeness - crashes and bugs, broken links, placeholder content, missing demo accounts, inaccurate screenshots - see developer.apple.com/distribute/app-review. Because that list is run as a release checklist before the upload, a rejection here is usually one metadata sentence, not a rebuild. Apple also allows an expedited review for a critical bug fix or for an app tied to an event whose launch is close, and an appeal to the App Review Board where you believe a decision misread the app, with one appeal per submission that did not pass, see developer.apple.com/distribute/app-review. We hold both as reserves rather than as plans, because a schedule that needs an expedited review to survive was never a schedule. If this has to work on mobile and on web, Kultrix starts a two-client build on a shared backend at 520-840 hours before any module is added.

XCTest over the Swift business logic and the service layers, XCUITest for the flows that move money or personal data, snapshot tests for interface regression, and Instruments for launch time, memory and scrolling. The suite runs on GitHub Actions macOS runners across several simulator versions, and once a week against real hardware, because the simulator has your Mac's memory and your Mac's CPU and will happily hide the problem your oldest iPhone shows in a second. Beta testing sits in the same pipeline. Apple allows up to 100 internal testers from your own team and up to 10,000 external ones, on up to 30 devices each, and it states that a build remains testable for 90 days, see developer.apple.com/testflight. We run small external groups per feature instead of one long list, so a crash report points at a change rather than at a release. Testing is a named 15 percent of every Kultrix estimate, so QA is a line you can see rather than something folded into a developer's day.

Yes, and it starts with a read rather than with a number. We ask for the repository, the Apple Developer account, App Store Connect access, the signing certificates and provisioning profiles, and whatever the release process currently is. The first milestone is deliberately narrow: build the app on our machines and put a TestFlight build in your hands. Until that works, any estimate would be a guess, because on somebody else's project the risk lives in what a repository does not show - a certificate nobody can find, a private dependency, an endpoint that exists on one laptop. After the read you get a written list: what still builds, how much of it is Swift and how much is still Objective-C, what is deprecated, what Apple will refuse on the next upload, and the hours against each fix so you can choose the order. If it must keep speaking to systems you already operate, those are their own module, third-party integrations at 70-180 hours. And if the read says the code is past saving, we say rewrite and put hours against that too. Send the repository to kultrix.com/contact and we will start there. Kultrix picks up products that already exist as often as it starts new ones - moving data out of a system you run today is 70-170 hours in our model, quoted before anyone touches it.

Kultrix stays on the product after release: bug fixes, iOS version updates, crash and performance monitoring, and the next round of features driven by what the analytics show. Support is quoted in hours as a monthly block you can stop in any month you do not need it, and it sits outside the build estimate on purpose, because hours nobody has planned are hours we should not invoice. Part of it is driven by the calendar rather than by bugs: Apple's rule since April 28, 2026 is that a build sent to App Store Connect must come from Xcode 26 or later against an SDK for iOS 26, see developer.apple.com/news/upcoming-requirements, so an app nobody has touched for a year cannot be updated until it is rebuilt. We plan that rebuild once a year, in a calm week. A Kultrix engagement is split the same way every time - 70 percent of the hours on design and development, 15 percent on QA and 15 percent on project management - and the team stops growing at the point where coordination eats the gain.

Yes - watchOS companions in SwiftUI and WatchKit that share a Swift package with the phone app, tvOS apps for Apple TV, visionOS apps for Apple Vision Pro. Treat each one as scope rather than as a tick box: every platform is its own target, with its own interface conventions, its own QA pass and its own App Review submission. A watch app that only mirrors the phone is usually the wrong product. The one people keep answers a single question on the wrist and hands the rest back to iOS, and designing that is where the hours actually go. This is exactly the place an iOS estimate grows quietly when nobody names the extra platforms up front, so we name them in discovery and price each as its own line. Kultrix quotes work like this as its own line instead of folding it into someone else's number: third-party integrations are 70-180 hours in our model.

Core Data or SwiftData holds the data on the device. CloudKit carries it between the devices one person owns, either directly or through NSPersistentCloudKitContainer, and it costs you nothing per user because the storage sits in their iCloud account rather than on your servers. That covers the case where an iPad should show what the iPhone shows. It does not cover sharing between different people, a web client, or a server that has to read the same rows - that is your own backend, and offline-first against it is a separate module at 80-160 hours in our model. The hours buy conflict resolution rather than storage: a durable background queue, optimistic updates that can be rolled back, and a rule agreed in advance for which side wins when the same record was changed on two devices that were both offline. Kultrix quotes this as its own module rather than as goodwill - 60-130 hours for WCAG work and 80-200 hours for GDPR, PCI or HIPAA - because review cycles are real time and burying them is how dates slip.

Yes: WidgetKit widgets for the home screen, the lock screen and StandBy, Live Activities on the Dynamic Island, App Clips for a flow that starts from a link or a code, and Share, Action, Keyboard and Notification Content extensions. Each one is a separate target that iOS launches in its own process under its own memory ceiling, which is why an extension cannot simply call the code your app uses on a full screen. The shared logic has to move into a Swift package that both targets import, and that refactor is the real price of extensions - not the widget layout, which is the part everyone budgets for. So extensions are counted as scope in the estimate instead of being assumed to arrive free with the app. Kultrix quotes an AI feature dropped into a product that already ships at 180-420 hours, and the AI module itself at 150-340 hours.

Kultrix sets the deployment target with you rather than accepting whatever Xcode proposes, because that one field decides how much of the app can call current Swift APIs and how much has to carry a fallback path. Where the answer comes from depends on what exists today: if you already ship, your own analytics settle it, since the lowest iOS release worth keeping is the one paying users are still running; if there is no app yet, we settle it in discovery next to the module list. Two things get confused here and should not be. The deployment target says how far back the app runs. The upload requirement says which SDK the build was compiled against, and it is not negotiable. Every extra major version you keep widens the QA surface - more simulators, more layout edge cases, more availability checks in Swift - and QA is a named 15 percent of every Kultrix estimate, so that decision shows up as hours you can read up front rather than as a cost you meet in month four. Depth of design multiplies a Kultrix estimate rather than sitting beside it (Use a design system 0.85x, Custom design 1x, Signature visual identity 1.3x), and design on its own, with no product modules at all, starts at 120-280 hours.

Real hardware alongside the simulator, and the list is decided in discovery rather than assumed. If you already ship, your analytics choose it; if you do not, the audience you are aiming at chooses it. It always includes the smallest screen you intend to support, the oldest device still inside your deployment target, and at least one iPad size whenever iPad is in scope, because memory pressure and layout give way on the old and the small long before they give way on this year's Pro. The upload side is not a choice at all. Apple's rule since April 28, 2026 is that a build sent to App Store Connect has to come from Xcode 26 or later against an SDK for iOS 26, see developer.apple.com/news/upcoming-requirements. That is a separate question from how far back the app still runs, and it has a practical consequence: an iOS app nobody has touched for a year cannot be given an update until it has been rebuilt on the current Swift toolchain. We budget that rebuild once a year, in a calm week, instead of meeting it in the week a hotfix is due. Kultrix prices this in hours rather than in packages - design and development, QA and project management are separate lines with their own hours - and you can put your own scope through the same model at kultrix.com/cost-calculator.