Inkpad: Vector illustration app for the iPad, now open source | Hacker News Reader

Inkpad: Vector illustration app for the iPad, now open source

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164 pointsshawndumas43 comments

To expand on my motivation for open-sourcing Inkpad and Brushes:

The biggest reason is the ideological element. For all the usual reasons, I’ve come to feel that software should be free/open-source. I feel really good now that these apps are free software. I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy to be working on them. I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I can pursue other values in life besides dollars. Turns out I really like GitHub stars.

In addition to that, I experienced serious burnout after we spent a year (2012) rewriting Brushes to be a more modern iOS app. This was in response to Procreate which, in my opinion, blew all the existing painting apps out of the water. (Now that Brushes is open-source, I can feel free to compliment a competitor.)

Despite our own impression that we had radically improved Brushes with minimal UI changes, the update was poorly received by many existing users. At that point I essentially lost all motivation to pursue it as a business.

Ultimately, I decided that rather than letting the apps rot on the store, or trying to sell them to another developer, releasing the source code was the right thing to do. I’m hoping to collaborate with other developers, and keep Inkpad and Brushes alive as open-source projects for as long as there is interest.

Congratulations. This is an amazing app (that I discovered only because you put the code on GitHub). And going through the code is very interesting. It's sad you went through burnout, but I can see why. Any chance you will blog a bit about the technical challenges you faced? There is quite a lot of code, I'm sure you have a lot to write about.

Thank you for doing this. I wish all software were released as open-source at their end-of-life instead of just being abandoned. There are so many software I wish were available to the community: Opera, SkyOS, Classic Mac OS, etc.

A grain of salt: "I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I can pursue other values in life besides dollars" - all your competitors will be much less fortunate now, going free is a kind of price dumping. I wish all the $.99 => 80/20 game/app damage was undone...

I really doubt this will have much effect on any of the competing apps. Brushes was already downloadable for free (with an optional in-app purchase). Many other painting apps of various capability are available for free too.

Perhaps more damage will be done in the vector space, where there's not a lot of money to be made in the first place... but I'd still be surprised if it puts anybody out of business.

At any rate, I don't believe anyone is entitled to any particular business model. More people are better off with open-source software.

Thanks for posting this description. Good to understand the thinking behind your decision!

Brushes, a painting app for iOS, is now open-source too: https://github.com/sprang/Brushes

I posted links to both of these in the past few weeks, but they didn't get any traction. I guess I have bad timing. I was surprised to see this on the front page!

After years of reading HN it's still fascinating how submissions reach the front page. I gave this the first upvote while it was still on the first page of 'new'. And i was certain that once it would go to the second page it would not get more upvotes in the weekend. To my surprise it is now on no. 1. A few crucial votes in a short time can make the difference. And i am certain that the person who submits it also plays a role. At least for me it was a reason to open the link because i recognized the name of the submitter.

Ah, the disadvantages of being a perpetual lurker...

I have purchased every app you've made and am constantly recommending them. I was very pleased to see this hit the front page.

Keep up the outstanding work...

Same developers and much of the same source. What's the story behind this?

There are lots of good reasons to release a mobile app's source, especially if it's a side project. Maybe you don't have time to work on it anymore, and it's not getting the love you think it deserves. Maybe there's a more practical reason, such as taking a new job in a related field and having to remove the app to avoid conflicts (although it sounds more the former in this case).

I'd love to open source one of my iOS apps, but it's a bit of a hack and I'm honestly rather embarrassed by the code!

For those wondering: both Inkpad and Brushes appear on the App Store for free from Taptrix, Inc.

Taptrix (the developers behind Inkpad and Brushes) was YC S10, though if I remember correctly they joined YC after their Brushes app was already a smashing success on the iPad. Brushes was released the same day the iPad 1 came out and the two guys behind it were both Apple veterans. [1] [2]

Brushes — This startup created the Brushes application for painting on your iPhone or iPad. The app was used to create the well-known iPhone covers for the New Yorker. With 250,000 paying users and $60,000 in monthly revenue, Brushes apparently holds the YC record for most profitable startup on Demo Day. Its eventual goal is to become the “Adobe of touch devices” by building a suite of apps. [3]

If I had to guess, I'd say the devs probably have enough money to retire. Congrats! Thank you for contributing your code to the world.

[1] http://appadvice.com/appnn/2010/03/brushes-ipad-launch-scree...

[2] http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/24/y-combinator-demo-day-2/

[3] http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/24/five-new-y-combinator-star...

60k a month in revenue for a painting app and people act like I'm crazy when I say its time for Apple to create an iPad with a digitizer, as if no one wanted to paint on an iPad.

The lack of a digitizer hasn't stopped people from creating amazing artwork on the iPad. Maybe the constraint forces a new approach.

Just because someone that's really determined can overcome the iPad's shortcomings and make something that looks professional, doesn't mean that drawing with a capacitive stylus isn't terrible.

Have you ever used a proper digitizer? If you did you should notice immediately how much better it is.

I'm not asking this to be a jerk or anything, I'm legitimately curious--what's the benefit of open-sourcing something like a mobile app? I would think that making an app private would be help you keep a level of proprietorship with your llc or whatever company you have producing the app. I know the benefits of open source projects in the developer-sphere but I would think a small-time developer would want their app to be generally private.

I want a specific arrowhead. Even if he doesn't make it, I can. Which is why I forked it yesterday.

Not sure what ...help you keep a level proprietorship with your llc or whatever company you have producing the app... means, but from the read me for brushes from the same developer...

One of my motivations for releasing the source code for Brushes was to make it a community project.

> please do not submit unmodified (or trivially modified) versions of this application to the App Store

I wonder how common this is for mobile applications.

Considering desktop applications, I've heard that many of the media conversion programs you find on sketchy websites are just reskins of Handbrake.

I've heard that some people are already re-signing and successfully submitting other developer's binaries.

So, I suspect there will be some submitted clones eventually. It's possible Apple would reject them for being "too similar" (if they're paying attention).

On the other hand, it would be cool if someone used these as a starting point and built something unique.

Clones always seem to get through. The open source Hacker News client news:yc[1] has had a lot of problems with this in the past. In chronological order:

https://twitter.com/newsyc_/status/291380036269899776

https://twitter.com/newsyc_/status/291385819799896064

https://twitter.com/newsyc_/status/303371858340884480

https://twitter.com/newsyc_/status/308312460551651328

https://twitter.com/newsyc_/status/315522279519961089

[1] http://newsyc.me

Your latest version on the app store is only a few weeks old. You're still giving this love, right? Because this is possibly my favorite app of all time. If it goes away, I'm going to be very sad.

Very common, and even worse apple can only give two shits about what the original developer thinks.

What do you expect Apple to do?

These things are made open source under a permissive license. The whole point is that people can do what they want with the code.

I was actually talking about clones of closed-source applications.

Given that you were replying to a comment specifically about open source, that wasn't clear. Also if an app is closed source, you have to wonder how the cloner obtained the source in order to re-skin it? Is that sort of industrial espionage, or code decompilation of iOS apps common?

You also have to wonder how Apple would know? There are almost half a million apps on the App Store, detailed code analysis of the app binary and comparison with other compiled app binaries on the store is hard enough on an individual basis, and trivially defeated by code obscuration, let alone at app store scale.

What are you suggesting Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other store operators should be doing?

A permissive license is the only one iOS apps can be released under. GPL and the App Store don't go well together (see https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance)

Not sure what your point is here. Seems to me that even if the FSF was happy with the app store, trivial forks and clones of OSS would reach the app store all the same, no?

That is not an answer to my question.

This must have taken a few years to create. Why free and open source!?

This is extremely confusing to me. This app is just extremely well done and always was. Is there so little money in it that maintaining, selling and supporting it makes no sense? (And how does that square with the just released update of Inkpad that seems to be extremely well done and extremely in tune with iOS7’s new look? Creating that must have taken a lot of time.) Or is this an ideological decision?

There was a time when Brushes (the other app from this developer that also just went open source) at least seemed to me like the best known and most popular painting app on the iPad. It seems to me like there should be money in this, even with minimal work. Or at least he could have sold the apps to someone.

There is just no explanation as to the reasons for this step anywhere. At least I couldn’t find any.

Edit: Ok, I think I figured it or at least something out by looking at the release history. The app was last updated more than a year ago and only minimally to add iOS6 support. The last update before that was again a year back, in September 2011. Brushes’ last update is similarly already a year old.

Time really does fly, it feels to me like I was using Inkpad just recently and that is was very much actively developed. But it seems like the developer had just very little time and in this context this seems like a pretty awesome step. This is definitely preferable to letting the apps rot in the app store (especially considering that those are pretty damn great apps).

It’s definitely a great way to continue working on those apps and keeping them alive without putting quite so much time into it, albeit without getting paid.

Many thanks for the analysis. Now it makes more sense. Also well done by the Inkpad developer. Reminds me of how Id open source old engines to the delight of aspiring game programmers, I'm sure aspiring iOS developers will feel the same about this.

Why not? I feel the overall value of the app is increased this way. There are many other much bigger free software projects.

You are my new favorite HNer! As soon as I figure out how to make a flat, T-shaped, arrowhead, I will be sending you a pull request! This is easily the best SVG editor for iPad. Keep charging the hill, man. This is great stuff.

Yeah, what an asshole.

Is there a link to screenshots somewhere?

EDIT: To answer my own question: https://github.com/sprang/Inkpad/tree/develop/Screenshots

I absolutely adore this app, I've used illustrator for +10 years and I honestly feel that manipulating beziers through direct input in Inkpad is not only a more pleasing, and intuitive, experience but in a lot of cases a more effective method of creating vector art. I frequently use it throughout my design process (and occasionally for the entirety of it).

You should be extremely proud of the powerful a tool you've created, and I hope that this transition to open source is positive for the app and for you and your team. I can't wait to contribute, even if it's only by way of design suggestions.

I'm pretty sure I've emailed you with glowing compliments before but I can't tell you enough how much I love using your app.

I'll post a few of my illustrations in the hope that other designers might see the potential of this tool and start using it too:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24117106/yh/Ibis%20small...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24117106/yh/corin%20ston...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24117106/yh/reclinging%2...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24117106/yh/Sweeno%20scr...

I assure you any perceived simplicity in my images are a product of my style rather than any limitations of the app :)

The comments in this code are very sparse. It's easy to think "this code is obvious and needs no explanation" when it's your own code. But even if I can tell what the code is doing, a comment explaining why is a big help in understanding context.

I'm guilty of this in my projects, and one of the things that helps me understand better what and how to comment things is to run the code through something like Pycco or related side by side doc generator.

I use Pycco on my systemverilog code and it works nicely and has greatly improved my comments too.

Just for a person who doesn't have an iPad. So, can one modify this app and then share it to others via internet? Or is it only possible to do via AppStore?

Can this be ported to OS X? It could be the best UI design tool.

I had a very basic version of this running on the Mac a while ago. It could open Inkpad/SVG documents and all of the editing tools were usable, but I never got around to implementing the rest of the UI (inspectors, etc.) so it was pretty limited.

That's why a bunch of the code is organized in the Inkpad-Core directory, by the way. All of that stuff worked on the Mac too.

When I updated Inkpad for iOS 7, the Mac version stopped building and I haven't had a chance to investigate yet. Once I submit this version of Brushes, I'll take a look at it and if I can get it to build in a reasonable amount of time I'll put the code on GitHub.

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