
Ask HN: Anyone making a living from  Desktop apps? - umenline
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
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terhechte
I'm a lone developer hacking away on a couple of Mac apps. I also have a few
iPhone apps, but these generate little to no income. The Mac apps are better.
Most notable is InstaDesk (<http://www.instadesk-app.com>) which generates my
main income and I can live off it thus living _the dream_ (i.e. right now I'm
sitting outside in a small cafe, enjoying the sun, watching people, and fixing
a couple of bugs for the upcoming 2.0.2 update; after that I'll head to a
green park which features fast wifi).

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).

~~~
gawker
Do you mind if I ask how you go about learning how to build Mac OS apps? I've
seen a ton of tutorials for iOS but hardly anything for Mac OS.

~~~
terhechte
Not much to add, the other comments are pretty good. I learned the most from
Apple's sample source code, and from reading through open source projects on
GitHub. Also, my former company send me to WWDC and the sessions are pretty
insightful, too. If you pay for an Apple Developer membership, you get free
access to these videos, and many of them are worth it. Though nowadays it's
mostly iOS. In 2007 or 2008 there were lots of introductory Mac development
presentations.

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...](http://www.amazon.de/Objective-C-Cocoa-Nachfolger-Tiger-
XCode/dp/3908497426/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_5)) alternatively the aforementioned
Hillegas ([http://www.amazon.com/Objective-C-Programming-Ranch-Guide-
Gu...](http://www.amazon.com/Objective-C-Programming-Ranch-Guide-
Guides/dp/0321706285/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1343053788&sr=8-3&keywords=AARON+HILLEGASS))
which is really good.

~~~
brandoncordell
Are you interested in becoming a passive mentor for someone who has a decent
grasp on core obj-c/cocoa concepts? I'm looking for someone I can bounce ideas
and questions off of. I think InstaDesk is fantastic!

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patio11
Certainly still an option. There's a long history of folks like that, the
market for e.g. Mac apps was if anything helped by the launch of the Mac app
store (some devs more than others, long story, ask them for the specifics). I
could give you two dozen examples from my social circles but most of them
would not appreciate the publicity.

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...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web-apps/)

~~~
hokua
What is definitely dead are Java Swing apps. I believe desktop BCC was a Swing
app. Swing app installation and updates are a major pain.

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.

~~~
jetti
Swing vs Native isn't the issue. The issue becomes users using old versions of
your software and having to support them when bugs pop up, even though it may
be fixed in the newer versions. It is hard to get everybody up to the latest
version (even if the upgrades are free). It can eat up a lot of time doing
support.

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.

~~~
jaredsohn
>It is hard to get everybody up to the latest version (even if the upgrades
are free)

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.)

~~~
jetti
That is true, but even that has its caveats. Depending on who your target is,
the user may be skeptical of a program "phoning home" on its own every so
often.

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saddino
In 2003 I began to supplement my contractor income by writing OS X apps as a
sole indie developer and eventually went full time. In the first six years I
made enough to live on.

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.

~~~
hokua
> I love the desktop, but that's really not where users are anymore.

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.

------
kaitnieks
We are (at <http://www.blumentals.net>). Windows apps, in fact, and not for
big companies but regular people. I don't know what to tell you, the market is
far from dead, maybe it will be dead someday, but right now things are fine.
The hardest thing about making mass-distributed Windows apps is getting your
good app to the customer through a pile of crappy ones.

~~~
axx
I don't want to offend you or anything, but maybe a redesign of your site
would give you some extra boost!

~~~
tonyedgecombe
It looks fine to me.

In fact I've become a little suspicious of sites that are highly polished but
seem to have little history.

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jakobe
My Mac app grosses around 3k € / month (<http://jabakobob.net/mdbviewer/>).
Might not be much for someone living in SF, but it's more than my day job at
an Austrian research institute pays.

~~~
GFischer
The website looks great :) .

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?

~~~
jakobe
I was at a couple of Cocoaheads meetings (<http://cocoaheads.at>), nice people
there, but I am too busy lately...

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brolewis
Desktop apps still have a place in some B2B settings. For a year I worked for
a company that developed software that managed fork lift battery inventories
for warehouses. These were warehouses that had little to no internet
connectivity on the floor and so having a desktop application was crucial. It
was a niche market but highly profitable.

~~~
skulquake
It always amazes me how a business can be built out of anything, "fork lift
battery inventory" You just need to find a pain point.

~~~
brolewis
Surprisingly, its such a pain point that a company would spend $50,000 -
150,000 for a single installation.

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axx
I think there are three kinds of desktop app developers that make real money
today:

* 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.

~~~
umenline
do you have examples for the second section ?

~~~
EwanToo
A good example of a developer in a specific, unfashionable, but successful
niche is Progressive Solutions [1].

Their target market is far from glamorous, but it's a very successful business
(they've actually just been acquired last month).

1 <http://www.progressive-solutions.co.uk/products.php>

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moondowner
It depends.

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.

<http://platform.netbeans.org/screenshots.html>

<http://www.eclipse.org/community/rcpcp.php>

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resettarget
I assume by desktop you mean either Windows or Mac or any Linux distro. I
mostly work on Windows as an engineer, there are some great products from
small or one-man company: Emeditor: a text editor | UltraEdit/UltraStudio: a
text editor/project IDE | Beyond Compare: a compare utility --> they have
Linux version | Source Insight: a source tree oriented code editor and browser
|

Those are all paid software and I bet the authors are making good lives from
their software

------
kindohm
I'm an independent contractor working on a Windows desktop app used in the
casino industry.

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FigBug
I do. I split my time between firmware and desktop apps. I work for a small
company of about 5 people. Before that I worked at a larger company, but was
the sole developer of an Audio Recording app. I also worked on speaker
modelling and configuration apps. All the apps I've worked on recently have
very small user bases and tend to be part of a larger system.

------
LTheobald
There most definitely is still a market for people making desktop
applications. Take Sparrow (<http://sparrowmailapp.com/>) for example. They
seemed to be doing well for a desktop application - so well they got acquired
by Google. An number of other applications I have purchased on my Mac are done
by small teams: Alfred, 1Password, TextExpander, Things, Coda, Tweetbot. As
other comments have mentioned, it may be easier on the Mac due to a perceived
higher quality & richer client base. Independent games are also doing very
well. Look at games like Braid & Limbo (true these also were XBLA titles).
Games are still desktop applications after all.

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.

~~~
nl
_They seemed to be doing well for a desktop application - so well they got
acquired by Google._

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...

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guilloche
I used to develope desktop applications for security printing. In such a niche
market, it is very hard to gain customers. Now I moved to web application and
launched online Torapp guilloche designer (<http://www.torapp.info>).
Hopefully things will be better.

~~~
GFischer
What's your market? Aren't you replicating the problem? (it's still a very
niche market). I hadn't heard of guilloche before now.

Also, the website doesn't look professionaly designed - maybe you don't need
it to, but it might help.

~~~
guilloche
Yeah, the security printing software is still a very niche market. I need to
consider using some of the expertise to something on mobile.

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yashg
I do to an extent and that too on Windows. I have this watermarking software I
developed 6 years ago and I keep updating it whenever I get time and its on an
auto pilot. People buy, download, I get money in bank. I am considering doing
it full time making a Mac desktop version and iPad one.

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.

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webwanderings
I wish people would make desktop application which transcends various browsers
and cloud. For example, look at the Bookmarks and History in browser. I would
wish to keep my bookmarks to myself wherever I go and it should be browser
agnostic. Currently, there are tons of web-services out there socializing your
bookmarks on the cloud but none would liberate your browser's
bookmarks/history for yourself. A local application could remedy such
situation.

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damian2000
Desktop apps are still used for a lot of equipment command and control
scenarios. I work on a small team who make a desktop app that needs to
communicate with some custom hardware over an RS-232 (serial port) based
protocol. For this sort of application, laptops which have a real serial port
(or via a port extender) are the only option.

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jorgeleo
I make a nice living (so far) out of making windows desktop apps, but they are
very niche oriented. Mostly statistical analysis of millions of rows. All
though it is possible to make them in html, it would be really hard to meet
the UI, performance, and mobility requirements with web apps.

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forcer
of course there are tons of companies, even big ones who make serious money
from desktop apps. But each of those including ours, is happy that making
money this way is not sexy anymore and all you startup guys focus your
attention elsewhere so we can keep the market to ourselves :)

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.

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hokua
Im make about $2k/mo off a Mac App

~~~
rdubb
How did you build it up to that level?

~~~
hokua
Its really all due to the Mac App Store. Having a free lite version helps. My
conversion from lite to paid is around 6%

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umenline
good example of mac shop don't know much about them but it looks like they do
cool apps "only" for mac <http://www.belightsoft.com/company/overview.php>

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b0
Of course there are. They just aren't as noisy which is why you don't think
they exist.

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.

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rbanffy
Steve Ballmer? ;-)

