huge fan and user of Sparkle. a while back I wrote a wrapper around it for automatically creating a changelog, signing software etc and its worked perfectly for years https://replay.software/bump
I use Sparkle on all the Mac apps I work on and always found the setup docs somewhat convoluted so happy to see this.
A couple years ago I built https://replay.software/bump to automate into the cloud the entire Sparkle process, and it's made it much more idiot-proof to create the changelog, do signing and release.
I'm one of the creators of Sleeve, a "now playing" desktop accessory for the Mac https://replay.software/sleeve. We charge a one time fee for the app, and average around $700/mo. We've been working on it entirely in our spare time for the last couple of years.
That’s pretty cool.
It’s nice to see that people are willing to pay for simple but effective utility apps on MacOS.
I feel like that type of paid app is almost completely gone from Linux and Windows.
I’ve switched to MacOS last year and have been tinkering away on a few things to improve my own workflow as well as dip my toes into native Mac programming with swift.
I would never have thought about polishing it up and trying to sell it had I developed it for Linux, but seeing stuff like this makes me want to give it a shot even if it’s just to see the whole process through.
I had a similar problem – which I opened sourced here; http://replay.software/bump. Bump basically automates all of the Sparkle signing and appcast creation using GitHub Actions, and then pushes the binary & changelog to AWS automatically with Terraform.
Yes – as of writing I've sold enough units to pay for the costs a few times over as well as server costs for the custom API I built. Some profits will be reserved for London based charities.
I knew that there were a lot of similar apps on the AppStore but I went with my conviction that less is more. Nearly all the apps are multifunctional and include journey planners, maps, alerts etc etc.
As a Londoner, I know my way around, the only thing I want to know is if the tube is even working – this is how Lines was born. I've tried to make the app's simplicity it's main selling point and hope I've achieved this to some degree.
Congratulations. From an idea to an App Store app in 2 weeks is very impressive, but it's 10x more impressive given that you were learning along the way.
Simple question, though: what's the story behind the Metro article? Your story is interesting enough that it makes for good reading anyway, but I was wondering (and absolutely no offense intended -- there's nothing wrong with it imo) if you had a contact/friend/similar who helped you get the article? Again, congratulations, I hope your app continues to sell well.
I actually was doing something similar (well, the very same actually) a few months ago, got to a working version, but then saw that there were already plenty of options, got discouraged, and suddenly lost all interest in polishing/publishing it...
Actually, it is a very useful function. It has usefulness and simplicity. Would you mind to give ROI analysis for your project? This will be helpful to the audience here.
Thanks. As of writing Lines has sold a few thousand copies, so it's made a good ROI. After costs have been paid (servers, iOS dev license etc) I'll be giving some profits to chairty.
