After getting tired of the clunky web interfaces for managing app reviews on both Apple App Store Connect and Google Play Console, I built rustpond – a fast terminal UI that lets you respond to reviews from both platforms in one place.
What it does:
- Unified interface for iOS (App Store Connect) and Android (Google Play) reviews
- AI-powered responses using OpenAI optimized with keywords for your app for ASO (optional)
- Vim-like navigation with arrow keys, word jumping (Option+arrows), and text editing
- Real-time character limits (350 chars for Android, unlimited for iOS)
- Pagination support for Android's API limitations
- JWT authentication for iOS, OAuth2 service accounts for Android
Why build this?
The official web dashboards are painfully slow (App Store Connect dashboard goes down regularly for maintenance), especially when you're managing reviews for multiple apps. Context switching between platforms is annoying, and the text editors are basic. Inspired by Claude Code's simple TUI, I wanted to build something that provided the same ease of use.
Fun technical bits:
- Written in Rust using tui-rs and crossterm for the interface (this is actually my first project in Rust, I wanted an excuse to learn the language)
- Cross-platform key handling (turns out Option+Backspace sends different escape sequences on different terminals! I mapped it to let me navigate between words easily and delete entire words when writing responses to reviews)
- Async pagination for Google Play's API, which only returns last 7 days worth of reviews (this is annoying to get around)
- Smart token management with automatic refresh for both platforms
Other Features:
- Static cursor
- Live character counter for Android responses
- Loads all available review pages automatically
- Shows device info, app versions, and response history
Would love feedback from other app developers who deal with this pain point! The authentication setup is a bit involved (you need keys from both Apple and Google), but once configured, it's a LOT faster than the web interfaces.
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P.S. - the name is a play on being able to "respond" to reviews. Respond, rustpond, haha.
parthchopra•6mo ago
After getting tired of the clunky web interfaces for managing app reviews on both Apple App Store Connect and Google Play Console, I built rustpond – a fast terminal UI that lets you respond to reviews from both platforms in one place.
What it does:
- Unified interface for iOS (App Store Connect) and Android (Google Play) reviews
- AI-powered responses using OpenAI optimized with keywords for your app for ASO (optional)
- Vim-like navigation with arrow keys, word jumping (Option+arrows), and text editing
- Real-time character limits (350 chars for Android, unlimited for iOS)
- Pagination support for Android's API limitations
- JWT authentication for iOS, OAuth2 service accounts for Android
Why build this?
The official web dashboards are painfully slow (App Store Connect dashboard goes down regularly for maintenance), especially when you're managing reviews for multiple apps. Context switching between platforms is annoying, and the text editors are basic. Inspired by Claude Code's simple TUI, I wanted to build something that provided the same ease of use.
Fun technical bits:
- Written in Rust using tui-rs and crossterm for the interface (this is actually my first project in Rust, I wanted an excuse to learn the language)
- Cross-platform key handling (turns out Option+Backspace sends different escape sequences on different terminals! I mapped it to let me navigate between words easily and delete entire words when writing responses to reviews)
- Async pagination for Google Play's API, which only returns last 7 days worth of reviews (this is annoying to get around)
- Smart token management with automatic refresh for both platforms
Other Features:
- Static cursor
- Live character counter for Android responses
- Loads all available review pages automatically
- Shows device info, app versions, and response history
Repo: https://github.com/parthematics/rustpond (would love any contributions!)
Would love feedback from other app developers who deal with this pain point! The authentication setup is a bit involved (you need keys from both Apple and Google), but once configured, it's a LOT faster than the web interfaces.
---
P.S. - the name is a play on being able to "respond" to reviews. Respond, rustpond, haha.