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Comment by vynch | Hacker News Reader

a)It takes a lot of time and technical skill to clone a good iOS app..and even if you are successful you have to go through the Apple Developer Program(which is annoying but it helps) and there are legal implications.

b) yeah fart apps are easy to make...but try cloning a good app like angry birds or talking tom cat!

c) if you really wanna clone and make money your best bet would be to clone as fast as possible and clone a lot of apps.You'd much rather just stick to rails apps (heroku ftw!)

d) and lastly there are people who can clone even the best iOS apps very quickly...but with that kind of technical skill also comes creativity and integrity!

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There are dozens of clones of angry birds. Some of them as good or possibly better. And we aren't talking about clones of polished products here, we're talking about a site that admittedly took a 2.5 hours to make. The comparison to a fart app (though their site is vastly more useful, and a unique idea AFAIK) is apt.

Lets take something with a bit less stigma. Background-changing apps. There are, what, 100+ of them? Probably more? Lots of them even share some backgrounds, which is visible if you just skim a dozen from the app store's images. And almost every single one has probably paid back the dev time it took to make, if not through sales then through ads.

> And we aren't talking about clones of polished products here.

Well when I said "This is why I stick to iOS apps" I was actually referring to the cloning of popular websites like quora,reddit etc.I am sorry if I did not make that very clear.

>Lets take something with a bit less stigma.,Background-changing apps. There are, what, 100+ of them?

Why take such an example when I have clearly agreed that it very easy to clone such apps.

> There are dozens of clones of angry birds. Some of them as good or possibly better.

Hmm...now that makes me think !!

Angry Birds itself is pretty much a direct clone of dozens of predecessor flash games.

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