What should your first app be? Choose by what you can finish, not by which idea sounds best.
Almost every answer to this question is a list of ideas. Lists are the easy part. First apps are rarely abandoned because the idea was weak. They are abandoned because the idea quietly required three more months of work that nobody saw at the start.
So put candidate ideas against three constraints instead. Will the stores accept something that small. Does it need other people's data. Can you test it on the device you already own. An idea that clears all three is a first app. An idea that fails one of them is a perfectly good second app.
Start with what the stores will acceptThe short version
The idea is not the hard part. The scope you did not notice is.
A first app has to be small enough to finish and still large enough that a store will publish it. Those two pressures point in opposite directions, and the gap between them is narrower than most idea lists admit.
Everything below is about finding an idea that sits in that gap. The three sections are in the order that kills projects: the store floor rejects you at the end, the data question doubles the work in the middle, and the hardware question stops you on day one.
What will the App Store actually accept?
There is a published floor and it is worth reading before you choose, because it rules out the two ideas beginners reach for first. Guideline 4.2 says an app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website, and that an app which is not particularly useful, unique, or app-like does not belong on the App Store.
Guideline 4.2.2 is the specific one. Other than catalogs, apps should not primarily be marketing materials, advertisements, web clippings, content aggregators, or a collection of links. That is the end of two classic first ideas: the app that is your favourite links in a list, and the app that is your existing website in a wrapper.
This is not a high bar in terms of effort. A timer, a tracker, a calculator for something specific, a checklist that remembers state, all of these clear it comfortably. The bar is about the app doing something on its own, not about how much of it there is. Read it as a shape test rather than a size test, because that is how it is written.
If an idea fails this test it is usually salvageable rather than dead. A list of links fails 4.2.2, but the same material with a reason to open it daily, a filter, a reminder, a bit of state that remembers where you were, is a different app. That is the move: find the smallest thing it could do on its own and build that instead. Simple app ideas for beginners is a reasonable place to look for candidates that already clear this bar.
Apple, App Review Guidelines, 4.2 Minimum Functionality and 4.2.2, read 7 October 2026
Does your idea need other people's data?
This is the question that decides whether your first app takes a fortnight or a season. An app that only holds the data of the person using it can store everything on the device and never speak to a server. An app where one person's input shows up on another person's screen needs accounts, a database, rules about who can read what, and a plan for when the network drops.
It is not a small step up. It is most of the work. Social feeds, marketplaces, chat, anything with a leaderboard, anything where two users see the same record, all land on the far side of it. Ideas that stay on the near side: anything you would otherwise keep in a notes app, a spreadsheet, or your head.
Apple also has a rule here worth knowing before you add a login out of habit. Guideline 5.1.1(v) says that if your app does not include significant account-based features, let people use it without a login, and that if your app supports account creation you must also offer account deletion within the app. A sign-up screen on an app that does not need one is work you do twice, once to build and once to support.
A useful sanity check: describe the app out loud and count how many times you say the word "other". Other people, other users, other devices. Every one of those is a server. If the sentence has none of them, you are on the near side of the step and the project is a fortnight rather than a season. If you want ideas that stay on the near side while still being worth building, app ideas that make money is sorted by effort rather than by ambition.
Apple, App Review Guidelines, 5.1.1(v) Account Sign-In, read 7 October 2026
Can you test it on the device you own?
Some of a phone is not available to you until you are holding one. A simulator renders a camera view as a blank rectangle or a canned image. Location can be faked but behaves differently outdoors. Bluetooth, NFC and the accelerometer need the real thing.
That matters for a first project because it changes your loop. If every test needs a build on a physical device, you iterate in minutes rather than seconds, and a first project rarely survives that. Expo's own camera documentation is explicit that you need a development build rather than a bare simulator once you reach for native modules like this.
The practical version: for a first app, prefer ideas that are screens, text, numbers, dates and local storage. Leave camera, maps, sensors and notifications for the second one, when the loop of build, run, fix is already a habit rather than an obstacle.
None of this means those features are off limits forever. It means they are a second milestone rather than a first one. Build the version that works with typed input, get it onto your own phone, and add the camera when the rest is already standing. If you have not done the first build at all yet, the first app tutorial walks the same path end to end.
So what should your first app be?
Something you personally will open next week. That is the only criterion left once the three constraints are applied, and it is the one that actually determines whether the thing gets finished, because nobody debugs a build on a Tuesday night for an idea they do not care about.
In practice that means a small tool for a routine you already have. The sets and reps you currently track on paper. The plants you keep forgetting to water. The split of a recurring bill. The medication schedule for a relative. Each of these is one screen, stores its data locally, needs no account, and clears guideline 4.2 without effort because it genuinely does something.
The thing to resist is picking something impressive. An app you would demo is a different project from an app you would use, and only the second one gets finished by someone doing it for the first time.
Once the idea is chosen, the thing that keeps it finishable is cutting it again. The version you build first should be smaller than the version you described, because the gap between them is where the extra weeks live. Scoping a first version covers how to make that cut without ending up with something that does nothing.
Five first-app ideas, and the constraint each one runs into
| Idea | Clears the store floor | Needs other people's data | Needs real hardware | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A habit tracker for one habit you actually have | Yes, it does something on its own | No, local only | No | A first app |
| A calculator for a niche you know well | Yes, utility is the whole point | No | No | A first app |
| A list of your favourite links or resources | No, 4.2.2 names a collection of links | No | No | Not a first app, and not an app |
| Your existing website in a wrapper | No, 4.2 names a repackaged website | No | No | Not a first app, and not an app |
| A photo based social feed | Yes | Yes, accounts, storage and moderation | Yes, camera | A third app, honestly |
Building the one you picked
Once the idea fits the three constraints, the build is mostly screens and local state, which is the part Newly is quickest at. You describe the app in plain English and get a real React Native and Expo project you own, with a preview as it takes shape, so the loop of change and look stays short.
The output being an ordinary codebase matters more on a first project than it sounds. When you later want the camera, or accounts, or a server, you are adding to a normal Expo app rather than hitting the ceiling of a closed platform and starting again somewhere else.
Newly is a paid product from $25 a month and there is no free tier, so it is worth having the idea settled before you start rather than paying to browse.
Questions people ask about choosing a first app
Probably not. An app you intend to charge for brings a second set of problems on day one: in-app purchase setup, a story about why it is worth paying for, and support for people who paid. A first app is a way to learn the build, submit and update cycle. Sell the second one.
Pick the one you will open next week
Run your shortlist against the three constraints above, keep whichever survives, and describe it in plain English to get a real Expo project you own.
Start building