Getting Started with Shape n Ship
Welcome! You've had a look around — maybe you even loaded the sample app (Fernwick, a little birdwatching journal) to see how a real project looks. So what now? Here's the short version of how to get the most out of Shape n Ship.
First, the lay of the land
Shape n Ship helps you build and ship software for the Apple ecosystem — iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It works whether you're making an app or a game, and whether it's headed for the App Store or you're just building something for your own personal use.
You can run Shape n Ship on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad — plan and track from wherever you are — but the coding itself happens in Xcode, so you'll need a Mac for that part.
Start with the concept — it's the foundation for everything else
It's tempting to jump straight into building. Resist that for a moment. The single most valuable thing you can do first is work through the Concept section ("Shape this idea").
The concept is a quick, honest conversation about your app before you write any code. It runs in two short passes:
- Reality check — the essential questions. What problem does this solve, and for whom? What's the one sentence a stranger would understand? Who are your nearest rivals, and what makes yours different? How will it make money (or not)? Are there any App Store review risks worth knowing about now? This pass ends with a simple, honest verdict: Going ahead, Parked, or Not going ahead.
- Shape the details — if you're going ahead, you settle the specifics: exactly who it's for, the tone, and — crucially — what your first version deliberately leaves out so you can actually ship it.
Here's why this matters so much: the concept isn't busywork — it's the source of truth that everything downstream draws from. When you later ask the app to help draft your App Store description, pressure-test your pricing, or shape your test plan, it uses the decisions you made here. Skip the concept and those later steps are guessing. Fill it in and they're grounded in what you actually decided.
You don't type all of this into forms by hand. The app writes a tailored prompt for you to paste into your AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor — whatever you use), and you paste the conclusions back in. It's a two-minute round-trip that saves you from building the wrong thing.
Then move into building
Once your concept has a "Going ahead" verdict, use the Start building prompt. It hands your AI coding assistant everything it decided about your app and asks it to plan the architecture and break your first version into small, runnable milestones — starting with a bare "walking skeleton" you can actually launch. (Brand new to Xcode? There's an Xcode setup prompt that walks you through installing it and creating an empty project first.)
Log your work as you go
As you build, capture things as features (new functionality you want) and bugs (things to fix). Give each a priority, and when you're stuck, tap "Create an AI prompt for this bug" (or feature) to get a ready-to-paste prompt with all the relevant context already filled in. This keeps your worklist and your AI sessions in sync instead of scattered across notes.
Move towards release
Your work is organised into releases — versions like 1.0, then 1.1. Create a release, assign your features and bugs to it, and check them off. Along the way, keep an eye on the Next Move bar at the top: it always points you at the single most important thing to do next — the bug still to fix, the checklist item still open, or the "you're ready to submit" nudge — so you're never staring at a wall of tasks wondering where to start.
When you're close to shipping, the Release Prep prompts help with the fiddly bits: App Store description and keywords, privacy answers, pricing, release notes, and setting up in App Store Connect.
And once you've shipped
If your app is headed for the App Store, the work isn't quite done when you hit submit. Shape n Ship then helps you promote it — planning which channels to focus on and drafting the actual posts, pitches, and announcements to get your app in front of people.
In short
Concept first, then build, log as you go, let Next Move walk you to the finish line — and, for App Store apps, promote it once it's live. The few minutes you spend shaping the idea up front are what make every later step so much easier.
Common questions
What's free, and what do I get with Pro?
Shape n Ship is free for your first three projects. Each one covers idea through building and testing — up to 15 tracked items (bugs and features combined) and one release per project — with no trial and no time limit, and the free tier never turns itself into a paid plan.
Pro removes those limits — unlimited projects, bugs, features and releases — and unlocks shipping and promotion. You can buy it once and keep it, or subscribe yearly; both give you exactly the same thing.
Do I need an AI subscription or an API key?
No. Shape n Ship writes the prompts; you run them wherever you already work — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or anything else. There are no API keys to paste in and no AI fees on top of the app.
The app doesn't send anything to an AI service itself. Prompts are built on your device for you to copy and paste, so what you do with one is entirely your choice, governed by that tool's own terms.
Which devices does it run on?
Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Where is my data stored? Can you see it?
On your own device, and — if you're signed in to iCloud — synced to your own private iCloud database by Apple, which is what makes it appear across your Mac, iPhone and iPad. If you're not signed in, it simply stays on your device.
We can't see it. Not "we don't look" — we have no access to it at all, and we can't retrieve or recover it on your behalf. The Privacy Policy spells this out.
Can I get my data out?
Yes, at any time, whether or not you're paying. Shape n Ship exports your data as JSON or CSV. The files are written on your device and go wherever you choose to put them.
What happens if my subscription lapses?
Nothing becomes read-only. Every project stays fully visible and editable, and nothing is deleted. What comes back are the free-tier limits on anything new — more than three projects, more than 15 tracked items (bugs and features combined) in a project, or a second release — and shipping and promotion lock until you restore Pro.
So you keep working on everything you already have; you just can't ship or promote, or grow past the free limits, until you're back on Pro. The Terms of Use set this out in full.
Get in touch
Couldn't find what you needed above? Send us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. It helps if you mention your macOS or iOS version and a short description of what's happening.