macOS How are Mac apps in terms of sales?

[detz]

I'm thinking of changing completely over to mac development but I'm not sure if the market is there to justify it yet. With a Windows product you can be sure to sell a certain number because there are so many users but with the Mac the audience is limited to begin with. Anyone here develop mac apps full time that can give some info on how well they do?

I'm not talking iPhone, that's a different market.

 

[dieseltwitch]

Your right in that the audience is limited but it is growing! I personally have talked over 20 people into going to mac.

the trick is to develop a program that fits the needs of what people are looking for. with a little product research I bet you could find plenty of thing.

Just an idea but my thought is to start developing programing for the solar and RE market. Engineering a PV system can be a pain in the butt. a program that put every thing in one place would be very handy. just my thought and thats what I'm working towards

 

[detz]

Yeah, I have a hard time coming up with ideas. :-( I have tons of ideas of apps that I want but I can't imagine that many people would find them useful but myself so I'm reluctant to spend time on them. Also, my iPhone app is doing well and I would like to add a "desktop" side to it but I don't want to write both a Windows and Mac app so I thinking of just creating the Mac version. That would probably piss Windows users off leading to bad reviews though so I've held off creating it.

 

[dieseltwitch]

I feel you pain or atleast i did, I started a book for my self when i was overseas called BBBDI or Brian's Big Book of Dumb Ideas! Im a drafter by trade, full time electrical engineering student and I also own a company selling and installing PV & wind systems. as you might imaging I come up with a lot of worthless ideas so I started writing them down. It has every thing from program ideas to things I want to build to random thoughts. when ever i need an idea i just look back in my book.
in my mind i would write what ever programs i want and what sells sells. Im just learning how to program so i have a lot of built up ideas! but once i figure this stuff out I'm gonna be writing all the time! I'm starting to get the hang of Java and C but still haven't really learned any use full interfacing things right now Im still in the terminal.
I say write what you want to and the the parts fall where they may!

 

[Spike099]

places to start

Hey detz. Im new to indie development myself, on the verge of releasing my first 1.0 product for OS X. I hear the market for Mac apps is great, if you can develop something interesting! A few pointers that could have helped me when I was first starting out.

Check out cocoa podcasts. CocoaCast, CocoaRadio, Late Night Cocoa, Mac Software Business...

Check out http://cocoablogs.com/ ... Many great Cocoa developers can be found through those blogs, alot of amazing advice!

Also take a look at http://cocoaheads.org/ to see if there are any developers who are meeting in your area, I've been to two meetings now and they are completely worth it!

 

[iAthena]

Have you thought about developing your application in an environment like RealBasic that will compile your application for Mac, Windows and Linux clients?

 

[Cromulent]

Have you thought about developing your application in an environment like RealBasic that will compile your application for Mac, Windows and Linux clients?

Rather than using something like RealBasic I'd suggest something like the Qt framework which is a C++ GUI and multimedia framework for all of the three major platforms. It is very regularly updated and is used by lots of major apps such as Skype and Adobe.

Errr... that sounded like a sales pitch, sorry .