Ask HN: Anyone making a living from Desktop apps?
is there such thing still developers that make desktop apps and making a living out of it ? that is i guess indie small teams not the big companies like adobe
I'd say it's a lot easier if you're working alone and have little costs. I have a small flat, and I don't have any employees. Also, I do the website myself, the customer service, the one or other ad campaign, the graphics, etc. So apart from my small rent and hardware (which is where I do invest, since I do think that good tools are really, really important) I have almost no expenses. Living in a small student town also helps since good and healthy food is really cheap here, too (like 3 eur for a solid and healthy lunch).
Seems Mac users have no problem paying for the software they use, considering that it's not overpriced crap that costs $60. But decently priced like $4.99
For example, you have no shortage of Windows text editors that are free. For the Mac your only real option is TextWrangler.
So I think VIM is not a good example of a good free Mac text editor.
You should qualify that with the demographics at your previous company. VIM (and Emacs) are perfectly good free editors for the Mac or any other platform.
It may be a question of price, though I also think that it could be a bout ease of buying. With the App Store people really only have to click twice to buy something. On Windows if you need a product as a solution to a problem, you need to go to different websites, compare their offers, everybody has a different payment provider, then you have to download and install. Really, I think that for many people pirating is not only cheaper but also far easier. And, since usually only good software is pirated, and not the crap, you don't even have to do so much research and cognitive burden to decide which offer to take. Other people already did that for you when they decided which one to pirate.
There're also studies though, where people find out that Mac users seem to be more inclined to pay for software. Maybe it's a question of initial price: When I pay a lot of money for a really good meal, I don't mind spending another 5 bucks for a great wine to accompany the taste of the meal. So if you spend quite some money for good (or perceived good, I don't want a Apple vs. others flamewar here) hardware, you might also want to spend a bit more on software.
In most european countries, student's food is state subsidized, that explains the fantastic prices.
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/navigation/
If you already know how to program then this is a pretty great resource.
There are also some introductory articles to help you get started. For example: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Gener...
It's probably best to start with a small project and tackle one project after the other.
I also read this book which helped since it tackled all the basics that one needs to know for a full Mac app. It's german only though (http://www.amazon.de/Objective-C-Cocoa-Nachfolger-Tiger-XCod...) alternatively the aforementioned Hillegas (http://www.amazon.com/Objective-C-Programming-Ranch-Guide-Gu...) which is really good.
'From C++ to Objective-C' is also good eBook. http://pierre.chachatelier.fr/programmation/fichiers/cpp-obj...
I also bought 'Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X' http://www.amazon.com/Cocoa-Programming-Mac-3rd-Edition/dp/0...
Cocoa is quite different than anything I had programmed before. Once I wrapped my head around nibs, IBOutlets and IBActions it was fairly easy. Once I got going, the apple developer docs were all I needed, but learning I found easier to do from a book than the docs.
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But that's really it. I do have a non-app store licensed branch of InstaDesk that would work with a license file system, but I'm only keeping that alive in case the App Store becomes too draconian. Just so that I always have a way out. Though that's becoming more difficult now with the iCloud integration.
Hope that helps a bit.
That said: can I talk you out of it? I've done both, and from a business perspective doing it as a web app is a MUCH better option.
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web-a...
Native apps on an App Store dont suffer from these issues, and their ability to integrate with special OS features make them more compelling vs a web app. Not so with Swing.
Whereas, when you make your app a web app, the changes you make are instant (for better or worse) and you don't have to worry about supporting various versions.
Automatic patching helps with this, although it requires a little more work designing a patching system (you might not want everyone hitting your servers at once), and it doesn't affect everyone (some people's computers are offline or require a proxy to be set up for patching.)
In 2008, mostly out of curiosity, I wrote a free iOS app and started a small company to publish it. This company made no revenue in its lifetime but was acquired this year. My return from that acquisition exceeds the revenue I earned from my desktop business (for every year combined).
Chances that I return to desktop app development? Zero.
To be honest, it is bittersweet. I love the desktop, but that's really not where users are anymore. Skate to where the puck is going to be and all that.
Depends on the application and the targeted user. There will always be a demand for apps for the "truck" users. But you are right, the desktop is overkill for the vast majority of people only using computers for email and social media. If they are your target, good luck. For the majority of developers, prices for apps that target these users is a race to the bottom.
I've heard once before that in some circumstances people are more comfortable buying last year's version numbered products than this year's version numbered products.
I'm just wondering if that's the case (a), or if it's just that no new major changes have taken place (b).
In fact I've become a little suspicious of sites that are highly polished but seem to have little history.
kaitnieks : can you tell about difficulties ? what software you are using ? and how do you handle pirates?
Pirating will happen, that's inevitable. The main thing here is not to make your paying customers victims in the fight against pirates and not to worry too much about your software in torrents. Make sure your keys can't be easily generated; people tend to avoid using modified executables for reasonable fear of viruses but have no problems using pirated keys.
Apps can either be hosted on the Windows app store, or it can be hosted by the developer with just a link from the app store to a download page.
For "metro style apps" i.e. apps that are full screen and run on the Metro version of the .NET framework, those get the full app store experience, and will be able to be submitted by individual developers (i.e. not full companies)
More information here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsstore/archive/2012/06/08/list...
Also, it's important to note that for "metro style apps" you existing libraries will likely have to be rewritten. If you've architected your application well, and only need to change the UI of your app for a different platform, this isn't possible with Metro-style, as far as I can tell. Your libraries have to be of a special type - a "metro class library" - in order for them to be referenced by your metro-style app. So far, I've been very frustrated by this experience and may just bite the bullet and go with the other hosting option.
- C++ (with all of the variety of GUI frameworks) - Delphi - Java - D (again with GUI frameworks) - Python
Also, I'd love to make 3k € / month ! . I'll probably be in Vienna for a few months next year, are there Hacker Meetups or similar?
On the website, I get some hits from fileinfo.com. I also posted to a couple of forums where people asked how to open mdb files on a Mac. I tried to be as little spammy as possible, and always disclosed my affiliation with MDB Viewer when writing about it (for example see http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=27957 at the bottom of the page)
I provide really thorough documentation on my website. I hope that the docs double as search engine landing pages.
I tried Google Adwords (I got 100€ credit for free), but I don't know if that actually led to any sales. I didn't continue because it seemed too much of a hassle.
I don't do much analytics, so I have no clue how successful the different things I did were. I occasionaly check my website using awstats, and I check app sales with AppViz, and that's about it.
* People who make huge profits fast, because they built a desktop client for popular webservices (see terhechte and his InstaDesk)
* People creating good software for niches that REALLY NEED that piece of software to get work done.
* Companies building large software suits for big companies that spend huge amounts of money in licences and support.
I personally think everyone in the middle is also doing well, but not enough to make a living out of it.
Their target market is far from glamorous, but it's a very successful business (they've actually just been acquired last month).
If you mean desktop apps in the like of Twitter clients, mail apps, media players and etc I'd guess the answer is no. There are a lot already and new ones are not needed.
But if you mean desktop apps in the like of 'fat clients' for big companies, Eclipse or NetBeans RCP based apps for example, the answer is yes. There are a lot of companies who have a lot of data which they'll be happy to have a good UI to be able to use it in their own purpose.
Those are all paid software and I bet the authors are making good lives from their software
So yes, I'd say there most definitely is a market for desktop apps & I wouldn't be surprised if the market was the strongest it had been for a while with the rise of the Mac App Store.
I think the general consensus was that the correct characterisation of that was that they were doing so badly that an aqui-hire was an attractive exit. Google certainly didn't buy them for the app...
Also, the website doesn't look professionaly designed - maybe you don't need it to, but it might help.
Desktop apps are here to stay. People will still do their business on a real desktop/laptop computer. Main advantages are larger screen and large physical keyboard. If you want to process a video, photos or type a 10 page legal contract - you would rather do it on a full sized computer than on a mobile phone or a tablet. So there will always be a market for software for desktop computers.
on a serious note, just look at download portals - like download.com etc. there are tons of very popular software and they all make money, either requiring users to pay or ad-supported.
Away from the buzz of the tech cities, the trendy "apps" culture and tech giants, there are lots. In fact, these people are actually the silent (and better paid) majority in the industry.
However, there is not much fanfare and most of them produce specialist software for niche industries.
I myself produce specialist financial modelling software which is all Windows desktop (C# + WinForms). I spent a few years doing logistics software (C# + WinCE + WinForms) and before that I spent 10 years writing a large desktop based system for distributed logistics and asset management for the defence industry.