3 ms·

As someone who has made indie Mac apps for a living, it's a tough market. I've done well and made good money on my own, but launching a new Mac only desktop pr

As someone who has made indie Mac apps for a living, it's a tough market. I've done well and made good money on my own, but launching a new Mac only desktop product these days without a subscription component is hard. Launching one without subscription is even harder, because your revenue is one off. Apps that are not extremely mainstream are bound to make just a few thousand or a few tens of thousands a year. That is likely not enough to build out a proper app dev team.

skinnymuch 6y ago
What about starting With one off and switching to subscription? That appears to be the trend right now in the Apple ecosystem at least. I’ve abandoned some apps and subscribed to some as more keep doing that shift. I wonder if starting off and growing a bit by being one off the switching wouldn’t be better business. Of course that strategy is considered repugnant by many. But I’m putting that aside. One weird thing that usually turns me off too much is when the one off payments are less than the subscription per year price. Like Noteplan 3 per year is more than Noteplan 2 Mac and iOS separate purchases.
- charlesdm 6y ago
  You'll get destroyed in reviews. It's horrible. It's a shitstorm you know will come when you make the change. I actually agree that plenty of apps don't warrant a subscription. Do you want to end up paying a monthly fee for everything? It's a hard one to balance.
oefrha 6y ago
What about launching on Setapp?[1] Do you have any experience or have you talked to another indie Mac dev with experience? I’m a user and kind of a fan, curious to hear the dev side of things. [1] https://setapp.com/ https://setapp.com/
- charlesdm 6y ago
  All the developers I have talked to tell me it's a waste of time and money, for the most part. It's more of "sure, why not" channel. But if someone has different experiences I would be happy to hear them.
  - j-pb 6y ago
    It's really sad how apple killed their whole app ecosystem with their 99¢ pricing policy. A lot of the apps on there were once mac apps that you'd see on every std installation.
jamil7 6y ago
Would you be open to some questions from someone wanting to launch their first mac app?
- charlesdm 6y ago
  Sure, e-mail is in my profile!

skinnymuch 6y ago

What about starting With one off and switching to subscription? That appears to be the trend right now in the Apple ecosystem at least. I’ve abandoned some apps and subscribed to some as more keep doing that shift. I wonder if starting off and growing a bit by being one off the switching wouldn’t be better business. Of course that strategy is considered repugnant by many. But I’m putting that aside. One weird thing that usually turns me off too much is when the one off payments are less than the subscription per year price. Like Noteplan 3 per year is more than Noteplan 2 Mac and iOS separate purchases.

charlesdm 6y ago
You'll get destroyed in reviews. It's horrible. It's a shitstorm you know will come when you make the change. I actually agree that plenty of apps don't warrant a subscription. Do you want to end up paying a monthly fee for everything? It's a hard one to balance.

oefrha 6y ago

What about launching on Setapp?[1] Do you have any experience or have you talked to another indie Mac dev with experience? I’m a user and kind of a fan, curious to hear the dev side of things. [1] https://setapp.com/ https://setapp.com/

charlesdm 6y ago
All the developers I have talked to tell me it's a waste of time and money, for the most part. It's more of "sure, why not" channel. But if someone has different experiences I would be happy to hear them.
- j-pb 6y ago
  It's really sad how apple killed their whole app ecosystem with their 99¢ pricing policy. A lot of the apps on there were once mac apps that you'd see on every std installation.

jamil7 6y ago

Would you be open to some questions from someone wanting to launch their first mac app?

charlesdm 6y ago
Sure, e-mail is in my profile!