Ask HN: Anyone making a living from Desktop apps?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4280463

by umenline • 14 years ago

96 82 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

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

patio11• 14 years ago

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...

umenline4• 14 years ago

link is wrong or something ...

SuitAndThai• 14 years ago

And it's down, here's a cached link for everyone else: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yjYTJSo...

hokua5• 14 years ago

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.

jetti3• 14 years ago

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.

mej102• 14 years ago

Do you have any data on how well non-App store applications are doing? Specifically I am looking at the power-user/developer market.

moondowner• 14 years ago

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

kaitnieks4• 14 years ago

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.

powertower• 14 years ago

I'm curious if there's a reason why all of the products on the website are version "2011" instead of "2012"? They seem to be up-to-date, and could have been spun up...

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).

axx2• 14 years ago

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

tonyedgecombe• 14 years ago

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.

dgdg• 14 years ago

I don't want to offend too, but it really does look more like a pirated software site, that.

kaitnieks4• 14 years ago

It's in progress. The new version is at http://blumentals.biz and we're switching product by product.

umenline4• 14 years ago

Hi ! this is what i meant in my question . small apps that folks that ready to pay for , to get things done !

kaitnieks : can you tell about difficulties ? what software you are using ? and how do you handle pirates?

kaitnieks4• 14 years ago

We're using Delphi with various component packs. It would be very expensive to buy all the components at once but we bought all the tools necessary during the previous years one by one. If you want to make Windows apps and you can ignore developer community's hostility against Pascal, then I would recommend Delphi, but if you plan on making cross-platform solutions then take a look at Qt.

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.

gawker2• 14 years ago

It does seem like there's no single distribution channel that a Windows app developer can reach out?

EwanToo2• 14 years ago

Windows 8 aims to fix that with a built-in app store, it's a bit simplistic so far but works.

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.

nanijoe• 14 years ago

What do you develop Windows app with? I've been toying with making a Windows version of web only app I am working on, but so far the only option seems to be using C# with .NET. Are there any other options out there? (Not that I have an issue with C#)

jetti3• 14 years ago

I'm not the OP but there are a bunch of options:

- C++ (with all of the variety of GUI frameworks) - Delphi - Java - D (again with GUI frameworks) - Python

kaitnieks4• 14 years ago

We are using Delphi. C# is a great language and .NET is fine if you're designing for a specific customer but it's (in our opinion) not a viable option for shareware apps, as it generates decompilable executables that require a large framework to run. Most people have .NET runtime framework installed, others have no problem downloading it but it is still a problem for a percentage of the users.

FigBug2• 14 years ago

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.

rbanffy• 14 years ago

Steve Ballmer? ;-)

kindohm• 14 years ago

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

terhechte7• 14 years ago

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).

Killswitch2• 14 years ago

I've noticed, correct me if I'm wrong, but pirates are more abundant in Windows users than Mac users... I did a quick search and there's barely anything available for download on TPB for Mac (Just the usual big company name stuff), and tons for Windows.

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

yardie• 14 years ago

I believe it is the history of the Mac. Mac users want good software and since the number of Mac developers is equal to the ratio of Mac:Windows users you had fewer choices so users were incentivized to pay developers, or else development dried up. On the other hand since there are so many Windows users and Windows developers it's a perpetual race to the bottom.

For example, you have no shortage of Windows text editors that are free. For the Mac your only real option is TextWrangler.

terhechte7• 14 years ago

The times when I used to erm "research" pirated software are long gone, so I naturally can't really say much about piracy differences between Mac and Windows. Back in 2002 when I switched after many years of Windows to the Mac, there was certainly far less.

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.

Wawl• 14 years ago

TPB isn't the right place to look for mac piracy. All pirates usually need is a serial number. You get the application by downloading the demo version. (There are very regularly updated serial databases available.)

gawker2• 14 years ago

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.

hokua5• 14 years ago

The books by Aaron Hillegass are good. I also like the Cocoa book by David Chisnall.

mej102• 14 years ago

There is a ton of documentation and example applications on Apple's developer website. Most major parts of the API have example applications.

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...

terhechte7• 14 years ago

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...) alternatively the aforementioned Hillegas (http://www.amazon.com/Objective-C-Programming-Ranch-Guide-Gu...) which is really good.

FigBug2• 14 years ago

'Become an XCoder' free eBook that is a fairly basic introduction to Objective-C and Cocoa programming.

'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.

ShellfishMeme• 14 years ago

I just looked at http://www.instadesk-app.com and noticed that you forgot to add

    class="teaser-imag-container"

to two of your slider image containers. That causes the padding to be off and the images overlay the text. Just thought I'd tell you.

terhechte7• 14 years ago

Thanks a lot! Fixed it right away :)

codyguy• 14 years ago

Would it be okay to share some information on sales channels for desktop apps? Could certainly use some help there.

terhechte7• 14 years ago

Hey, I'm really concentrating mostly on the App Store. In addition to that I did a StackSocial sale once (https://stacksocial.com/) and apart from that whenever a blog or any guy asks for promo codes for a competition / contest / event to host on his blog / site, etc, I always give them redeem codes so that people that get the app for free may hopefully share their love by telling friends. Also, once I gave away 120 licenses for a big instagram photo contest in NY. That gave the app a lot of traction since all the people that got the license were really good photographers who used Instagram a lot. So they in return told many friends and tweeted about InstaDesk, etc.

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.

axx2• 14 years ago

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.

umenline4• 14 years ago

do you have examples for the second section ?

PopaL• 14 years ago

CAD and FEM software for example.

EwanToo2• 14 years ago

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

hokua5• 14 years ago

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

statictype• 14 years ago

What's the app?

rdubb• 14 years ago

How did you build it up to that level?

hokua5• 14 years ago

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

saddino• 14 years ago

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.

hokua5• 14 years ago

> 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.

yolesaber• 14 years ago

What was the app?

brolewis2• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

brolewis2• 14 years ago

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

jorgeleo• 14 years ago

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.

damian2000• 14 years ago

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.

LTheobald• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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...

jakobe3• 14 years ago

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.

GFischer2• 14 years ago

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?

jakobe3• 14 years ago

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

adambenayoun2• 14 years ago

Care to share your marketing channels? Are you spending money on Ads?

jakobe3• 14 years ago

I assume most people find my app directly on the Mac App Store. There is the "Search App Store..." button that Mac OS displays when you double click an unknown file type. I think that's important for my app, but I have no numbers to back that up.

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.

DeepDuh• 14 years ago

That's a nice, clean portfolio site, congratulations on that.

guilloche2• 14 years ago

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.

GFischer2• 14 years ago

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.

guilloche2• 14 years ago

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

resettarget• 14 years ago

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

b0• 14 years ago

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.

umenline4• 14 years ago

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

webwanderings• 14 years ago

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.

yashg• 14 years ago

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.

forcer• 14 years ago

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.

Ask HN: Anyone making a living from Desktop apps?

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