The problem
Group trips get planned in a group chat. Links pile up, nobody is sure what's been decided, and one person ends up keeping a spreadsheet that's out of date by lunchtime. Most trip-planning apps are built for one traveler with one itinerary. They don't handle six people voting on where to eat or settling up who paid for what.
What we built
Jot & Trot is a map-first planner the whole group edits together. You pick a destination, scout the area, and sights and restaurants appear on a live map. The group votes on what makes the cut, and the app builds the days for you. It groups stops by neighborhood, spaces out meals, and shows real walking times, opening hours and the weather. On the trip itself, a Today view shows what's next with one tap for directions. At the end, a split-the-bill screen works out who owes whom with the fewest payments. One link shares a trip, and everything syncs live.
It runs on iPhone and iPad from a single codebase, with a hosted database behind it. We deliberately left out in-app booking. It would have added commissions and contracts, and every group already has the booking sites it likes.
How it went
The build went smoothly. App Store review didn't, and that turned out to be the most useful part.
- 10 Aug Submitted to Apple.
- 21 Aug Rejected: "not optimized to support all screen sizes." The reviewer tested on an iPad and saw the phone layout stretched across it. We had fixed iPad layout the day after uploading, but the reviewer was looking at the older build. A notification banner was also clipped on the largest iPhone. We fixed both and resubmitted the same day.
- 25 Aug Rejected again, for two new issues. The app crashed when someone took a photo on an iPad, because one required permission message was missing. And Apple requires that any app with sign-in lets people delete their account inside the app. We built account deletion end to end, tested it, and resubmitted that day.
- 27 Aug Approved and released.
Rejections are part of launching, not a surprise at the end. Every Launch Build we quote now includes time for review, and the issues Apple raised here are checked before we submit anything.
The result
Jot & Trot has been live on the App Store since 27 August, seventeen days after it was first submitted. For our clients, the payoff is a pre-submission checklist built from real rejections. We test on the smallest and largest iPhones and on an iPad, using the exact build we're about to submit. We check every permission message. If an app has sign-in, it gets account deletion from day one. A client app that fails review costs a week of launch momentum, so we'd rather find these problems ourselves.
Want something like this for your business?
Tell us what you need. We reply within one business day.