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'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).
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
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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#)
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[+] [-] terhechte|13 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] ShellfishMeme|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Killswitch|13 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] gawker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codyguy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|13 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] hokua|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] SuitAndThai|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mej10|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umenline|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saddino|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaitnieks|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nanijoe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] powertower|13 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] gawker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umenline|13 years ago|reply
kaitnieks : can you tell about difficulties ? what software you are using ? and how do you handle pirates?
[+] [-] jakobe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GFischer|13 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] adambenayoun|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DeepDuh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brolewis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skulquake|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axx|13 years ago|reply
* 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|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moondowner|13 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] resettarget|13 years ago|reply
Those are all paid software and I bet the authors are making good lives from their software
[+] [-] kindohm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FigBug|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LTheobald|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] guilloche|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GFischer|13 years ago|reply
Also, the website doesn't look professionaly designed - maybe you don't need it to, but it might help.
[+] [-] yashg|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] webwanderings|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damian2000|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jorgeleo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forcer|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hokua|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdubb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] statictype|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umenline|13 years ago|reply