How AI 10x'd My Mobile App Development | Inbox Experiments #7

Hey there 👋,

This week I want to tell about my mobile‐app development journey from initial brainstorm all the way to integrating HealthKit. I'll walk you through my tech stack, how AI powers every stage, and key engineering wins & lessons that shaped the skeleton of this project.

If you missed it last week, I shared my structured approach in Plan Your Indie App: 5-Step Product Roadmap → it’s still available if you want to grab it.

Now, let’s dive deeper into the process!

🔧 Tech Stack Breakdown

• React Native + Expo → my go-to for fast, cross-platform UI.
• Supabase (Postgres + Edge Functions) → handling auth, realtime, backend logic, database and securely calling AI at the edge.
• AI Tools:

• OpenAI → processes user data inside the app. This is a free space, you can use any model you choose.

• Claude → assists with decision-making and collaborative code refinement on Cursor.

• Cursor → my AI-powered IDE for smarter autocomplete & code snippets.

• ChatGPT → I also use as an on-demand bug fixer besides the other processes.
  • HealthKit integration → for this project: pulling in health data.

🚀 From Idea → MVP: My Workflow

1. Brainstorming → I feed openAI prompts and quickly surface ideas. You can grab free my roadmap: Plan Your Indie App: 5‑Step Product Roadmap

2. Decision-making → Claude scores and ranks ideas to shape a focused roadmap.

3. Scaffolding → Cursor scaffolds screens, sets up Supabase clients, and creates boilerplate code.

4. Backend → Supabase Edge functions call OpenAI securely (low latency), handle rate-limiting, and manage data on postgres.

5. Frontend → With react native and expo I can use many native features of devices and connect to backend.

🤖 AI as a Co‑developer

• Ideation: openAI for raw ideas → Claude to refine and suggest trade-offs.

• Coding: Cursor helps generate code patterns; ChatGPT reviews errors (“Help me fix this CORS/fetch error…” becomes routine).

• Architecture: Claude reviews schema design or SQL edge-cases (ex: “What if a user’s health readings have nulls?”).

Pro tip: Claude helped me chunk HealthKit sync into manageable steps and saved hours on data handling.

🛠 Engineering Challenges & Wins

HealthKit integration 🚨:

• iOS datas meant I wrestled with permission flows, JSON parsing, and background behavior anomalies.

• For data logic Calude helped me.

Supabase Edge:

• Securing OpenAI keys at the edge ensures client safety.

Bug loop:

• I hit bugs → paste stack trace to ChatGPT → get a fix in seconds → build and test.

Win: Edge + AI + Cursor = a development loop I wouldn’t go back from.

📚 What was Important for This Week

• A unified AI workflow (openAI + Claude + Cursor + ChatGPT) sets a new bar for dev speed and quality.

• Supabase Edge is a game-changer for secure serverless AI integration.

• Using HealthKit adds complexity. Tackling it directly is valuable, but it takes real engineering effort.

• AI-assisted debugging isn't just helpful, it’s become essential to my daily flow.

🔭 What’s Next

• Push notifications via Supabase Edge + Expo notifications.

• Recommendation engine using Claude + embeddings.

• Launching on TestFlight & Play Store soon, planning a full release.

🔚 The Bottom Line

Building with AI isn't just faster but it's fundamentally different. When ChatGPT gives ideas, Claude can review your schema, Cursor can scaffold your components, and ChatGPT can debug your errors in real-time, you're not just coding anymore. You're orchestrating.

Your turn: What's the one AI tool you wish existed for your current project?
Reply and let me know, I read every response. ⚡

Keep building,
Yunus 🚀