Why I built a little bird to watch my apps

The numbers were there. Getting to them was the problem.

I was tired of having to click through so many different screens, pages and tabs in App Store Connect. I wanted a place where all the data I cared about was easily accessible.

That is the starting point for Perch. Checking downloads, looking at proceeds, reading reviews and seeing where an app is charting are all ways of asking a fairly small question: how is this thing I made doing?

The question can lead somewhere interesting. A change might deserve a closer look. A review might need an answer. A new country might be worth remembering. But first, I wanted to be able to see what was happening without turning the check itself into a task.

So I built a place for that first look.

What I wanted from an App Store dashboard

The useful overview is the one you can understand quickly and open up when something catches your eye. A total on its own leaves questions. A wall of every available metric creates a different kind of work.

In Perch, installs, proceeds, reviews and rankings sit within the same app. You can start with the overview and follow a figure into its detail. If a country’s rank catches your attention, connected reports can put that position beside the installs from that country.

That relationship is useful to me. A chart position describes one kind of progress. A download count describes another. Seeing both makes the picture less abstract, without pretending that either one explains everything.

I still think there is value in going to the source. Perch is a companion to App Store Connect: a more accessible place for the day-to-day look, with Apple’s tools there for the wider work of managing and releasing an app.

A small place on the Mac, a familiar place on iPhone

On Mac, Perch lives in the menu bar. It gives that quick check a place beside the work you are already doing. On iPhone, the same idea becomes something you can open away from your desk.

I like the scale of that. Checking on an app should be allowed to be brief. You might find that nothing needs your attention. You might read a review and decide to investigate a bug later. Either way, the check has done its job.

The aim is accessible information. It is still worth deciding what you want to learn before opening a dashboard. If you are comparing weeks, use comparable dates. If you are following a release, keep a note of when it went live. A clearer view helps, but a useful question gives that view a purpose.

For a simple routine, we have put together a first-month guide to checking on a new app.

There is room for a little personality

Perch has a bird, reviews delivered as letters and a Passport for the countries an app reaches. Those details give the numbers a setting that feels appropriate for something you have made and sent out into the world.

A new review is someone writing back. A first download in another country is a small arrival. A milestone is a moment you might want to keep. The visual language gives each of those events a little space.

It also makes room for progress at different scales. You should not have to be at the top of a chart for your app’s story to be interesting. A small app can reach someone a long way away. A helpful review can point to an improvement. A modest week can still contain something worth noticing.

That is the feeling I want around the information: warm, clear and interested in what happens next.

Start with the question you already have

If you want to know where an app is charting, you can search for it in Perch or paste its App Store link. Public rankings do not need an App Store Connect API key.

When you want your own connected reports, you can add a key using the setup guide. Public chart data and private app reports have different access requirements, and the guide explains the connection and permissions.

There is also a practical boundary worth understanding. A dashboard can make information easier to reach; it cannot make Apple’s reports arrive sooner. The date, source and scope of a number still matter. We explain those differences in why App Store download numbers do not always match.

Your reports have a place, too

Perch stores connected reports on your device and can sync them through your private iCloud database. API credentials are held in the system Keychain, with iCloud Keychain used for credential sync when available. There is no separate Perch account or Perch reporting server.

That does not mean the app never contacts a service. It talks to Apple to retrieve information, and some features use other services. The privacy page spells out those requests, storage choices and user controls in detail. I would rather you could read the actual explanation than rely on a vague promise about privacy.

Back to making things

The original wish remains a good test for Perch: can I get to the information I want without clicking through so many different places?

There will always be more data to inspect and more questions to ask. For the everyday check, I want the useful things close together, the detail easy to find and a little room to enjoy the fact that an app is out there being used.

I wanted checking on my apps to be a small part of making them. That is why there is now a little bird in the menu bar.