I built an iOS snoring app solo. Just hit public beta with $0 marketing. Here's where I actually am.
Background: I'm a solo developer, building in spare time. I started SnoreScribe because I couldn't find an app that answered the actually useful question: is my snoring getting better or worse over time?
Every app I tried would record audio and show a waveform. Fine — but I already knew I snored. What I needed was a trend. Is the wine making it worse? Does sleeping on my side help? Am I actually improving?
So I built the thing I wanted.
What it does
- Records overnight, detects snoring automatically (saves only the snoring segments, not 8 hours of silence)
- Morning report with a timeline and short audio clips
- Trends view across nights — this is the part that didn't exist in anything I found
Everything runs on-device. No account, no uploads. Audio never leaves your phone.
Tech stack: SwiftUI + SwiftData, all native iOS, zero third-party SDKs.
Honest current state
- Core app is done and stable
- Public beta live on TestFlight
- Zero ad budget — distribution is 100% organic (Reddit, IH, X)
- Beta testers are trickling in slowly. I've been spending time in sleep/snoring communities giving real answers rather than dropping links. Slow, but feels more sustainable.
The positioning question I'm stuck on
This is what I keep coming back to. The app records snoring — that's the feature. But what people actually want is judgment: is my problem getting worse? Is what I'm
trying actually working? Should I see a doctor?
Framing it as a recorder undersells it. Framing it as a medical toold the right sentence yet.
Does "snoring trend tracker" land better than "snoring recorder" to
Looking for
- Beta testers (iPhone users who snore, or think they might)
- Anyone who's been down the sleep tracking rabbit hole — what did y
- Honest feedback on positioning — would love outside eyes on this
TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/dWaNkCPk
Happy to talk about the build, distribution strategy, or just snoring in general.
This is a great example of a solo product where the feature and the real user outcome are not quite the same thing.
“Snoring recorder” sounds like a utility, but “snoring trend tracker” feels much closer to the actual job: helping someone understand whether their snoring is getting better or worse, and whether their habits are making a difference.
The on-device/privacy angle also feels like a big trust advantage here. For an app recording audio overnight, “no account, no uploads, audio stays on your phone” is not just a technical detail — it is probably one of the strongest reasons to try it.
Nice work getting to public beta with $0 marketing. The slow organic route through sleep/snoring communities sounds harder, but probably much more valuable than random paid traffic at this stage.
The answer to your positioning question is already in your own post — "is my snoring getting better or worse over time?" is the job people are hiring this for, not recording. "Snoring trend tracker" wins because it names the outcome, not the mechanism. I'd also lean harder into the on-device angle in your copy; for something that records overnight audio in your bedroom, "audio never leaves your phone" is a real reason to choose you over anything cloud-based, and it's barely visible right now. Curious whether beta testers are finding the trends view on their own or if you're having to point them to it — that'll tell you a lot about how much the positioning gap is actually costing you.
Thanks for this — "naming the outcome, not the mechanism" is the clearest version of what I've been circling around.
To your question: honestly, no. Beta testers mostly don't find the trends view on their own. They find the morning report, use it for a night or two, then ask "can I see this over time?" — which tells me the entry point is fine but the path to the actual value is buried. That's a UX problem and a positioning problem at the same time.
On the on-device angle: you're right that it's undersold. I mention it but I don't make it the reason to choose. Fixing that.
On the positioning question you are stuck on, there is a dimension hiding in it that makes the choice easier.
The line between snoring tracker and medical tool is also the line between unregulated and regulated, and you want to stay on the right side of it on purpose.
A trend tracker that helps you see whether your snoring is getting better or worse, and whether sleeping on your side or skipping the wine changes anything, is a general wellness product.
That lane is clear and you can market it confidently.
The moment the app starts answering is my problem serious or should I see a doctor as if it knows, or implies it can detect a condition like sleep apnea, it drifts toward a medical claim, and in the US that is the kind of thing the FDA looks at as software acting like a medical device. Apple review leans the same way on health claims.
The good news is you do not have to give up the useful part.
You can serve the should I see a doctor instinct without diagnosing, with a neutral line like if your snoring is loud or trending up it may be worth talking to a doctor, framed as general information rather than a verdict about that specific user.
So snoring trend tracker is not just the better marketing, it is also the safer position, and your fully on device, no upload setup already removes the other thing people would worry about.
Medical tool is the framing that pulls weight you do not want yet.
"The line between snoring tracker and medical tool is also the line between unregulated and regulated" — this is the most useful thing anyone has said to me about this decision.
It also makes future scope calls automatic. The moment I'm tempted to add something like "this pattern might indicate sleep apnea" — that's the moment I've crossed the line. Wellness side is clear, that's where SnoreScribe stays.
Really appreciate you naming this. It turns a recurring debate into a rule.
What stood out to me wasn't the snoring.
It was that the product seems to sit between several very different interpretations of the same problem.
The interesting question may not be which description is most accurate.
It may be which one people are actually hiring the product to help them decide.
That's a more useful question than the one I've been asking myself.
From what I can tell so far, there seem to be at least two distinct jobs people are hiring it for:
Those are different people at different stages. And I've been trying to write copy that speaks to both at once — which is probably exactly why the positioning feels like it's sitting between things rather than landing on one.
Interesting.
What's striking is that both of those interpretations can sound convincing at the same time.
I'd be curious to dig into that a bit more, but it's probably more than I'd try to unpack properly in a thread.
Happy to continue over email if useful.