On 29 September 2025 the people behind Cigar Scanner wrote to their users to say that Apple had removed the app from the App Store. The offence, as they described it, was displaying a cigar. Android owners were unaffected. iPhone owners were handed a web address and told to carry on in Safari.
Cigarro is a cigar tracking web app, and it has never been in the App Store, by design. The Cigarro Method is Cigarro’s review-by-thirds framework, and it runs on an iPhone exactly as it runs everywhere else, from an icon on the home screen. That is the whole argument of this piece in two sentences, so let me say the awkward part early: Cigarro is our app, and the title above is our house view, not a neutral verdict. What follows is the evidence for it, the honest limits of the web app approach, and a fair look at the cigar apps that are still in the store, several of which do things we do not.
The rule Apple applies, and how it applies it
Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines contain one line that matters here. Guideline 1.4.3 says that apps which encourage consumption of tobacco and vape products, illegal drugs, or excessive amounts of alcohol are not permitted, and that facilitating the sale of tobacco is not allowed. That is the entire published rule. It does not say a cigar may not be photographed, catalogued or reviewed. What it means in practice is decided one submission at a time, by whichever reviewer opens the file.
The record of those decisions is uneven, and it is worth setting out plainly. In 2017 Apple removed Cigar Aficionado’s Where To Smoke lounge finder, as the magazine reported at the time. In September 2025 it removed Cigar Scanner, a ten-year-old identification and journal app with more than a hundred thousand Android installs, on the stated grounds that showing a cigar counts as promotion. Cigarista, a newer AI identification app, says on its own site that it built a full iOS version, submitted it, was rejected, appealed, and lost, with Apple’s position summarised as not allowing apps that relate to tobacco at all.
And yet, when I checked the App Store on 8 September 2026, it listed a handful of cigar journal apps without apparent difficulty: Puro, Cigarbase, Humidor Companion, Cigar Notes and a few others, most of them small, most of them released in the past year, Puro carrying an 18+ rating and an in-app age check. So the rule is not a wall. It is weather. An app can be admitted one season and removed the next, and the developer finds out by email.
None of this is a complaint about Apple, whose store it is and whose rules they are. It is a description of the ground an iPhone owner stands on when deciding where to keep ten years of tasting notes.
What a removal actually costs you
When an app leaves the store it does not vanish from your phone that afternoon. It stops receiving updates. Then an iOS release arrives that it was never built for, or a subscription fails to renew, or a server the app quietly depended on is switched off, and one morning the icon opens onto nothing. Cigar Scanner’s users were told to carry on in Safari, which is a workable answer, and to the developers’ credit the web version was ready on the day. Not every developer will have one ready.
The question to ask of any cigar app on an iPhone, then, is not whether it is in the store today but what happens to your notes if it is not in the store next year. There are two good answers. The first is that the app keeps your data somewhere you can reach without it. Puro, for instance, stores everything on the device and syncs privately through iCloud, and exports the collection and journal to PDF or CSV on its paid tiers, which is exactly the right instinct and deserves saying. The second answer is that the app never depended on the store in the first place. That is the one this article is about.
Installing a web app from Safari, in under a minute
A web app on the home screen is not a bookmark with airs. Since the first iPhone, Safari has let you add any website to the home screen from the Share menu, and if the site ships a manifest declaring itself a standalone app, iOS opens it in its own window, without the browser bars, with its own card in the app switcher. Since iOS 16.4 in 2023, home-screen web apps can also receive push notifications and show a badge count, in Apple’s own words on the WebKit blog, exactly like any other app on the phone.
Here is the whole procedure for Cigarro. Open Safari, not Chrome and not the browser tucked inside Instagram, and go to app.cigarroapp.com. Sign in with Google or with a code sent to your email; there is no password to invent or forget. Tap the Share button at the bottom of the screen, the square with the arrow rising out of it. Scroll the sheet, tap Add to Home Screen, then Add. That is the entire installation. The Cigarro icon sits among your other apps, opens full screen, and remembers who you are.
Two practical notes. If you arrived at Cigarro from a link inside Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, TikTok or Chrome, those in-app browsers cannot add anything to the home screen, so Cigarro offers to hop you across to Safari and, if the hop does not take, shows you how to copy the link and open it there. And notifications for comments, replies, new followers and the Weekly Ember only arrive once the app is on the home screen, because that is where Apple allows web push to live. Nothing buzzes you one nod at a time; nods arrive as a single daily digest, which is more civilised than most native apps manage.
What the web app does, and what it does not
It would be poor form to sell the web app approach without naming its costs, so here they are side by side.
| Cigarro on the home screen | A native App Store app | |
|---|---|---|
| Installation | Safari, Share, Add to Home Screen | App Store download |
| Own icon, full screen, app switcher | Yes | Yes |
| Push notifications and badge | Yes, on iOS 16.4 and later | Yes |
| Updates | Automatic on next open | Through the store |
| Can be removed by store policy | No | Yes |
| Store ratings to read before trying | No | Yes |
| Works offline | No, Cigarro needs a connection | Varies by app |
| Camera band scanning | No | Some apps |
| Multiple named humidors | No, one humidor per member | Some apps |
The right-hand column is not padding. Cigarro has no offline mode; the app shell loads from cache, but every humidor and review request goes to the network, so a lounge with no signal is a lounge where you write your notes on paper and enter them later. There is no store listing with a ratings page, which means you are trusting our word and the Lounge’s public reviews rather than a star count. There is no camera identification; adding a cigar is a pick-first search across a verified catalogue of more than two hundred brands and seven thousand vitolas, with free text when the catalogue lacks one. And there is one humidor per member, not a cabinet and a travel case kept separately.
What you get in exchange is the part we would rather be judged on. The Cigarro Method asks for a review in three acts, first third, second third, final third, with nine metrics and a flavour picker in each, and draws the result as a Cigar Signature, two line charts and a mouthfeel strip that show how the cigar moved rather than what it averaged. There is a thirty-second Quick Log for nights when the full Method is too much ceremony. Rest tracking shows what has sat long enough, which pairs well with how long a cigar should rest before you light it. And the Lounge, a chronological members’ feed with accountable handles and photos re-encoded on the device so location data never leaves the phone, is where a review goes if you want company. All of it is on the free tier, which holds thirty unique cigars with unlimited reviews; the paid tiers change the cap and nothing else, as the pricing page sets out.
What survives a purge: your humidor, in a spreadsheet
Portability is the other half of the argument, and it cuts both ways. If Cigarro is right that an iPhone cigar app should not depend on a store, then it should not depend on Cigarro either. So it does not.
Bringing a collection in takes a spreadsheet, or a table pasted from one. Profile, then Your data, then Import a spreadsheet opens a four-step flow at /humidor/import: choose or paste the file, map the columns, review every row before anything is committed, done. The importer reads a CSV or TSV, guesses the delimiter, forgives a headerless sheet, and matches your own column names, so a column called maker or house lands as Brand and one called sticks lands as Quantity without your intervention. Rows are matched to the verified catalogue on exact names only; an ambiguous name, of which the Cuban and non-Cuban twin brands are the classic case, matches nothing rather than guessing. Every input row ends in one stated outcome, imported, skipped, unusable with the reason, blocked by the plan cap, or failed with the error. Nothing is dropped silently. And the file itself never leaves your phone; the browser parses it locally and sends only the finished rows.
Taking a collection out is one tap in the same place. Download my humidor produces a CSV with fourteen columns, from Brand and Line through Wrapper, Binder and Filler to Resting since and Notes, with headers that match the importer’s own vocabulary, so the file round-trips back through the import screen unchanged. Download my data produces the full record as JSON: profile, humidor, every review with all three thirds, Lounge posts and comments, the lot. The line in the app that describes this is the one I would put on the door of the whole product. Your humidor is yours. It leaves with you any time, and it arrives here just as easily.
This is the practical test to apply to any app in the table below. Can you get your notes out, in a format another app can read, without asking anyone’s permission? If the answer is no, the app’s store status is the least of your worries.
The alternatives on iPhone, judged honestly
Here is the field as it stood on 8 September 2026, drawn from each app’s own listing or website on that date. Prices are as published by each maker and are not ours to guarantee.
| App | How it reaches an iPhone | What it is for | Free tier | Paid path |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cigarro | Home-screen web app | Review by thirds, humidor, the Lounge | 30 unique cigars, unlimited reviews | Monthly tiers from $4.99 CAD |
| Puro | App Store | Private journal with per-third notes | 1 humidor, 1 cigar, 1 session | Basic or Premium subscriptions |
| Cigarbase | App Store | AI scanning and humidor | Listed as free with in-app purchases | In-app purchases |
| Cigar Scanner | Safari web app since September 2025 | Band and barcode identification, journal | Everything | Hardware sensor |
| Cigarista | Home-screen web app | AI identification and humidor | Unlimited humidor, 2 identifications | Premium from $7.99 a month |
| Boxpressd | Home-screen web app | Social platform, humidor, shop | Unlimited humidor, Smoke Sessions | Limitada, one-time purchase |
| Cigar Dojo | Home-screen web app | Community and check-ins | Everything | None, sponsor-supported |
A few of these deserve more than a row. Puro is the most interesting native option because it takes structure seriously: its sessions run from cold draw through first, second and final third, it keeps everything on the device with iCloud sync and no account, and it exports to PDF and CSV. Its free tier is a shop window rather than a shelf, one humidor with one cigar and one session, and when I looked it carried a 3.3-star average from six ratings, with reviewers praising the design and grumbling about the band scanner. It is also, by its own description, private by design, with no social layer at all, which will suit some readers precisely.
Cigar Scanner is still the reference desk of the category, a database it puts at some thirteen thousand cigars behind a camera, and its Safari web app carries the full feature set. The removal changed how you open it, not what it does; our comparison with Cigar Scanner goes through the two apps feature by feature. Cigarista and Boxpressd arrived at the same web-app answer we did, Cigarista after an appeal to Apple and Boxpressd by building as a progressive web app from the start, and Cigarista’s own FAQ states the reasoning as clearly as anyone has. Boxpressd’s free humidor is uncapped, which is the most generous free capacity on this page and I would rather say so than have you discover it. Cigar Dojo is a clubhouse rather than a ledger and makes no claim to be otherwise.
If you want the whole category rather than the iPhone slice of it, our full ranking of cigar apps covers these and more, and the head-to-head with Cigarista is the fairest test of a scanner against a journal that we have written.
Who should pick what
If you want a strictly private notebook that never touches a server, with several named humidors and no community, Puro is the honest recommendation, and its per-third session notes are closer to our own Method than anything else in the store. Keep an eye on the export button, and use it.
If identifying an unfamiliar band at the counter is the main job, Cigar Scanner’s web app or Cigarista will do that and we will not. Cigar Scanner has the deeper catalogue; Cigarista has the more modern camera work and an unlimited free humidor. Either pairs perfectly well with a proper journal at home.
If you want the widest social network and a shop attached, Boxpressd, and if you want company more than records, the Dojo.
If what you want is a record of your own palate that gets more useful the longer you keep it, written in three acts, drawn as a signature, exportable in a spreadsheet the day you decide to leave, and immune to a store policy that has now removed two well-known cigar apps and rejected a third, then Cigarro is what we built, and the installation takes under a minute from Safari. Read how to taste a cigar first if you want to arrive with a vocabulary; the Method will supply the structure.
Questions people actually ask
Is there a cigar app in the Apple App Store?
Yes, several small ones as of September 2026, including Puro, Cigarbase, Humidor Companion and Cigar Notes. But the store has also removed two well-known cigar apps, Cigar Aficionado’s Where To Smoke in 2017 and Cigar Scanner in September 2025, and rejected Cigarista’s iOS submission on appeal, all under guideline 1.4.3 on tobacco. Presence in the store today is not a guarantee of presence next year.
Why is Cigarro not in the App Store?
Because it was built as a web app and a progressive web app from the first day, on purpose, and has never been submitted. That means no store policy can remove it, updates arrive the moment you open it, and it behaves identically on an iPhone, an Android phone and a laptop. The trade is that there is no App Store listing to read reviews on, and no offline mode.
Do web apps get notifications on iPhone?
Yes, once they are added to the home screen. Apple added web push and app badges for home-screen web apps in iOS 16.4, released in 2023. Cigarro uses this for comments, replies, new followers, mentions, support replies and the Weekly Ember. Nods arrive as one daily digest rather than one buzz each.
Does Cigarro work offline on iPhone?
No. The app shell is cached so it opens quickly, but every humidor and review request needs a connection. If you smoke somewhere without signal, write your notes on paper and enter them when you are back in range, or use the thirty-second Quick Log the moment you are.
How do I move my collection from another cigar app into Cigarro?
Export it from the old app as a CSV, or copy its table into a spreadsheet, then go to Profile, Your data, Import a spreadsheet in Cigarro. Map the columns, review the rows, confirm. The file is parsed on your phone and nothing is uploaded until you approve the finished rows. Rows past your tier’s remaining slots are held rather than lost, with an offer to import the rest after an upgrade.
Is Cigarro free on iPhone?
Yes. The Pocket Humidor tier is free for as long as you like, with thirty unique cigars and unlimited reviews, the full Method, the Lounge, import and export included. Adding a thirty-first cigar prompts a choice of paid tier, which begins with a thirty-day free trial. Prices are in Canadian dollars and start at $4.99 a month.
Put it on the home screen
The iPhone is a fine place to keep a cigar journal, provided the journal does not belong to someone who can be asked to leave. Two established apps have been shown the door of the App Store and a third was refused at it; the handful now inside may stay for years or may not, and none of us gets a vote. A web app on the home screen sidesteps the question entirely, and a proper export button answers whatever is left of it. Choose on that basis rather than on whether an icon came from a store, and light the next one knowing the notes will outlast the phone. Cigarro is free to install from Safari at cigarroapp.com.
