Rob Chinery

Full stack developer. Founder of Jolt, a top ranked Shopify content app.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@hcaz32000 @faridmovsumov @AnthropicAI Maybe eventually, but I feel like that’s still a long way off. Sidekick’s app building feature is very basic and can only replace the simplest of apps. Would Shopify really want to signup for hosting vibe coded backend code that they’re liable for and need to support?

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@GoranCulibrk Makes sense. It also seems like the bar is extremely high now for Shopify to delist, so I was doubtful that was the case for any of them.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@samdavidoff Wow pretty crazy that people can’t adjust their expectations for a Lego game lol

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@patrickbo11e @ShopifyDevs Keep us updated. I haven’t bothered submitting any lately because I just don’t think Shopify will take any action, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@malisauskasLT @papodoki This 100%. How will merchants discover the quality apps that play by the rules when they’re buried under the bad actors. Also it’s not far fetched to imagine merchants eventually avoiding the app store altogether if the reputation declines enough.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

Maybe I'm missing something here. If most Google searches just return an AI summary of info pulled from websites without sending users to those sites then how will the sites survive and continue to generate new content?

[Culture Crave 🍿 @CultureCrave]

Google announces it will now prioritize AI-generated answers in search results over human-written website articles

• Search will be centered around a reimagined ‘intelligent search box’

• Starts next Tuesday

(via @TechCrunch)

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

Even though this is kind of inconvenient for devs I think it’s probably the right move. My issue though is that if Shopify cares about trust in the ecosystem they should be prioritizing policy enforcement on the app store way above things like this.

[Eytan Seidman @eytanseidman]

Trust in our ecosystem is built on the boring stuff being right. For years, public apps on Shopify could hold offline access tokens that never expired. If one leaked, it stayed valid forever.

We’re changing that. Starting January 1, 2027, all apps in the App Store will need to use expiring offline access tokens.

This change will help us keep merchant data secure and help app developers maintain merchant trust.

More details on the https://t.co/c7oLtrXeEo changelog: https://t.co/o19NAVV3iE

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@malisauskasLT 😂This is one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@bendee983 I think it’s also worth noting that this guy works at OpenAI. He needs to post on a regular basis about coding being solved in order to keep that investor money flowing.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@robertosenabre @ShopifyDevs I think we're all deeply confused by this whole setup. I still often forget which dashboard I need to use to access whatever specific settings or information I need at any given time.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@glcst I’m not sure that we’ll have to imagine it, we’ll probably be seeing it fairly soon.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@matthewsmith Absolutely, I feel like a lot of this stuff could even be flagged for review by a mostly automated system.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@malisauskasLT @faridmovsumov Absolutely, it’s a major problem. I think dozens of apps still doing it is probably a conservative estimate. It’s only going to get worse unless they start aggressively enforcing the rules.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@TomRushmore @malisauskasLT @faridmovsumov Almost seems like it would be easier to just run a good useful app that gets honest positive feedback than to engage in such a confusing and complex scheme.

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

Last week I received an email out of the blue from Shopify that my external marketing site didn’t list one of my more recent pricing plans, so my app would be demoted then delisted if not fixed by the end of the month. How are they able to stay on top of checking pricing pages on external sites (which apps aren’t even required to have), but somehow they can’t catch things like this?

[Erikas Mališauskas @malisauskasLT]

How to get rich in Shopify App Store in 6 months:
1. Create a single-feature free Shopify app (feel free to copy some popular app).
2. Use only keywords for your app name, no branding.
3. Farm reviews in the most shady way possible (see attached screenshot for inspiration).
4. Get the Built for Shopify badge somehow anyway.
5. Once the app reaches the top of the rankings, introduce pricing.
6. If executed correctly, $10K MRR is bare minimum.

Apparently the worst thing that could happen, app gets delisted for couple of weeks and you're told to get rid of these tactics, but by that time you will probably have hundreds of 5-star reviews and great ranking in the App Store which gets you organic growth and you can work it from there.

This company has been doing this among all of their 8 apps since February and their reviews/rankings skyrocketed. I'm pretty sure they're getting thousands of installs every month now. They already rank #1 for some keywords so I'm sure monetization is just around the corner 😅

@ShopifyDevs @liam_at_shopify @atleeclark I think it's becoming very clear that we need much stricter policies, especially with hundreds new apps published every week. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@TomRushmore @malisauskasLT @faridmovsumov Oh that is interesting. How do they drive installs to the apps though if none of them are listed publicly? Wouldn’t they need at least one to be public to then drive installs to the unlisted ones?

[Rob Chinery @RobChinery]

@yeramianm It makes it even worse that it’s a Built for Shopify app. We get an email if our LCP goes up by a few milliseconds, but this stuff apparently goes unpunished.