you can do both with https://electronjs.org/
And you could also gouge your eyes out. But neither would be pleasurable.
Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
11–20 of 52 posts
Re: Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
#12Simple, the Mac. Huge bonus of being able to have it on the App Store and sell it for a couple bucks.
Re: Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
#13I'm an ex-Mac user, and current Windows user. I'd say do Mac first. Mac users are accustomed to and way more likely to pay for apps.
Also, people are way more accustomed to buying apps on the Mac App Store than the Windows App Store, so discovery is definitely going to be an issue if you're going the App Store route.
On the Windows side, I pay for apps, but because prices tend to be higher for useful Windows apps, I tend to not buy as many.
When I was on Mac, I'd drop $10-15 on an app without blinking. For more expensive apps on the App store, it was also an easy decision because a $50 app could be installed on multiple machines.
In general, the useful apps on Windows aren't on the App store don't have the liberal licensing that Mac App store apps do. Because I want to run my stuff on at least two machines (desktop and laptop), and because usually there's some DRM that binds a license to one machine, I am much more hesitant about buying licenses.
Re: Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
#14Windows has the most market share at ~85% total (Windows 10 is ~54%). If your target is enterprise users, then probably it's Windows but Mac users have been thought of as more willing to spend money on indie software they use.
Re: Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
#15Who is the obvious target market in your mind? Is it programmers, artists, musicians, small business people, mega corporate conglomerate employees, millenials, boomers, rich people, North Americans, Europeans, Chinese? The answers to these questions will guide you.
Re: Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
#16Obvious dependencies: you need a computer of the relevant type if you're going to go native.
Are you going to sell it as a product? How? Mac store, Windows store, online from your own website, Steam, something else?
How are you going to acquire customers?
What apps are you competing with (hint: there's a lot, on all platforms)?
Which native platform are you most familiar with/want to become familiar with? (Note that Windows has several platforms within it; UWP is the obvious modern choice, but maybe you want a WinForms app)
Re: Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
#17Simple, the Mac. Huge bonus of being able to have it on the App Store and sell it for a couple bucks.
The App Store is awash with productivity stuff, I'm not sure it's as big a bonus as you think.
Re: Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
#18Web first. It's cheaper, more people can use it, and you can find product-market fit more efficiently.
How are you going to get a web app to run in the background and notify you when it sees you are reading HN instead of churning out code?
Re: Ask HN: Develop productivity app first for Mac or Windows 10?
#19you can do both with https://electronjs.org/
Yup, target Windows, macOS, and Linux all with one codebase (and be within epsilon of targeting mobile with Cordova). All with JS. Or preferably TypeScript.