Codex feels like a small team now



Hey Reader,

Codex feels like a small team now. It codes, does market research, reviews my emails, and helps me think.

This week, the desktop app got thread management updates, and Codex on iPhone got a ton of bug fixes.

Here are my Top 3 Articles for Codex:

These articles cover how I use Codex for app development and for marketing my apps.

  1. Install These Skills Before Codex Touches Your Xcode Project (687K views)
  2. How I Build Apps With Codex Without Opening Xcode (356K views)
  3. The Screenshot Mistake That's Costing You Downloads Every Day (315K views)

You don't need to open Xcode if you use my AppCreator skill to build iOS and macOS apps.

5 Links and Resources

  1. Side chats in Codex are super helpful for one-off questions where you don't want to interrupt the main workflow. Select text and "Ask in side chat" or just type /side
  2. The latest Codex update allows Codex to manage its own threads. Let one agent manage all of your open work items.
  3. What is it like to build an Indie App Business? Read this article to find out.
  4. It is overwhelming to think of new skills to add. Instead, just ask Codex to do it for you: Copy this prompt to Codex.
  5. Codex integration in the ChatGPT app is a huge step in productivity. I've used this to check on tasks, do market research, and make bug fixes while on walks or runs.

Talk soon,

Paul Solt
Paul@SuperEasyApps.com

P.S. Try my new timer app UI. The new UI is experimental, but what I've dreamed about for years.

I use timers to help me focus (since I'm easily distracted).

My workflow:

Set a 25-minute timer.
The rule is: Don't do anything else until the timer goes off. (No email, no social, stay in chair ... do the work).

Download the new Super Easy Timer beta on TestFlight

  • Menu bar
  • Tiny timer
  • Full Screen timer
  • Non-activating keyboard modes for Keynote + PowerPoint presentations
  • Always visible (pin on top of Full Screen apps)

P.P.S. Give your app some time after changing titles or keywords. A few weeks after picking new keywords, my app is finally starting to rank higher.

App Store Optimization (ASO) is slow for organic traffic.

My takeaway: Don't rely only on Apple Search. After this UI update, I will be publishing YouTube videos to promote the app (YouTube was the biggest driver of my app sales in the past).

My app was downloaded more the other day, which boosted my app rank today.

Super Easy Apps Weekly - Paul Solt

Join 6,727+ iOS/macOS developers using Codex and Claude to build and ship apps. Expect practical tutorials, repeatable workflows, and hard-earned lessons from 7 shipped apps and time at Apple, Microsoft, and GoPro.

Read more from Super Easy Apps Weekly - Paul Solt
3,158 downloads over the last 90 days because of Apple featuring my app

Hey Reader, Apple featured Super Easy Timer on the front page of the Mac App Store. 3,158 downloads. $0 revenue. That's on purpose. What got me here? Fixing all the papercuts in the original timer app and creating a better onboarding experience caught Apple's attention. That made them feature my app on the front Discover page and on the Work tab in the Mac App Store. Over the past two months, I made huge improvements to the UI and unlocked the ability to use a timer on top of every single...

GPT-5.6 Sol vs. Fable 5 Blind Test

Hey Reader, I didn't sleep much last night. I was up pushing Sol to fix things that GPT-5.5 couldn't. I got early access to GPT-5.6 yesterday, and I had agents working on both macOS and iOS apps (and QA tooling). These models are super capable, but they have different strengths and weaknesses. I had them work on SwiftUI for an iPhone app today. Watch: GPT-5.6 vs Fable 5: 4 UIs, Judged Blind, 1 Winner Can you tell which model made each UI? Hint: one is not like the others. Now, we have access...

Mac App Store feature boosting downloads for Super Easy Timer

Hey Reader,Three things: 1. My new Mac app update was just approved.It adds clock, stopwatch, pomodoro, and tabata.Check it out on Mac! 2. Apple featured my Mac app on the App Store so I've had a massive boost in downloads, impressions, and ratings. 4 Million impressions 1,690 downloads Massive downloads and impressions from an App Store feature I'm now ranking for a ton of keywords because I localized with AscBuddy (Chrome extension). That was a big win for about 5 minutes of work. 3. OpenAI...