I’m a solo dev, and I wanted to share a recent experience as a case study on the current state of the App Store and indie development.
A few months ago, I built a simple macOS utility to solve a personal frustration: verifying the actual speed of USB-C cables and devices in the Mac menu bar. It is call USB Connection Information and it supports macOS 13 and up. Before launch, there were no other apps in this specific niche on the Mac App Store. The app became unexpectedly successful, hitting the top 100 paid utilities and getting a good amount of organic press.
In the last two weeks, at least five near-identical apps have appeared on the App Store. The concerning part is that some of these clones have copied my App Store description, including my personal origin story about why I built the app.
A few open-source clones have also appeared on GitHub, which I see as a positive community contribution. My concern is with the commercial clones on the App Store that are engaging in plagiarism.
This raises a few questions I’d be interested to hear HN’s thoughts on:
I’ve been transparent about my success on Reddit. How much are LLMs lowering the barrier to entry, allowing others to take a validated idea and marketing copy and generate a functional clone in a matter of days?
It seems that derivative apps with plagiarized descriptions and app elements are being approved without issue. Does this signal a shift in App curation?
My app’s value is its simplicity. In an environment where simple, successful ideas can be replicated this quickly, what is the moat? Is it brand, speed of innovation, marketing, or something else?
Curious to hear your perspectives.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45269827
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Source: news.ycombinator.com
