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Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

boringbar.app

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Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#151

Post by throwanem »

a-ve wrote: post #147
throwanem wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can second the issue with the automatic color selection; with my background photo it cashes out to an illegible black on black, and there's no (obvious) option to change the theme or override the computed colors. It seems like it would be relatively straightforward to honor the user's light mode/dark mode setting, and the WCAG accessibility guidelines [1] do a good job of both discussing the importance of luminance…

Hey. I'm seeing this issue with some other users as well and I'm trying to reproduce this - do you have the reduce transparency accessibility option enabled by any chance?

I do!

edit: Checking now I'm back in arm's reach of my laptop, I can further confirm disabling the option does resolve the issue on Sonoma. Nice catch!

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#153

Post by a-ve »

trueno wrote: post #120
a-ve wrote: post #99

OP here - based on the feedback, I’ve switched boringBar to a perpetual license for personal use: https://boringbar.app It’s now $40 for 2 devices and includes 2 years of updates. After that, you can keep using the version you have, or choose to pay for updates again later. For businesses, I’m keeping the existing annual pricing. A lot of the comments on pricing were fair, and I appreciate people being direct about i…

alright man i'm gonna buy it you seem p cool. lovely looking software here too edit: yeah this is good stuff. see some other bug reports here im actually not running into any myself, running 4 workspaces plenty of apps. its so straight forward and simple, the design is fantastic. seems to play nicely with my rectangle app snapping, though it takes a moment for it to resize since less bottom space is available with th…

Thanks for actually using the app. Appreciate it! I concur with the uBar issue - its jank was the main reason I built this app.

I didn't want to add the logout/restart/shutdown option initially, but I'll experiment with it to see how useful it is.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#154

Post by Terretta »

a-ve wrote: post #99

OP here - based on the feedback, I’ve switched boringBar to a perpetual license for personal use: https://boringbar.app It’s now $40 for 2 devices and includes 2 years of updates. After that, you can keep using the version you have, or choose to pay for updates again later. For businesses, I’m keeping the existing annual pricing. A lot of the comments on pricing were fair, and I appreciate people being direct about i…

Put the $40 in the app store, I'll buy it just to support this move. (Though it should be $20.)

For business, I would also pay $20/seat in Apple Business's app store (no quantity discount needed), so it's part of our MDM software for Windows users unfamiliar with Mac. Note that subscriptions are not available to businesses using that channel, only flat purchases. All you have to do is have a flat purchase in the retail app store, and businesses can buy that in bulk to assign to users.

// Your other business licensing mechanisms, like, fixed number of users, different license per batch of users, etc., are too awkward for a real business with real employee turnover to keep track of, sorry.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#155

Post by dangus »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #129
harladsinsteden wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your justification for the monthly fee in the first place? There is a model that worked for decades: If you spent a _significant_ amount of work enhancing an existing tool you'd release a new major version. The would be a discount for license holders of the old version. Why reinvent the world over and over again?

Simple answer right? It makes more money. Not saying that was OPs motivation but that's obviously why the shift happened.

To me it seems like small businesses like this get squeezed by these demands to make everything cheaper while the big corporations ignore it and stick to their pricing.

I’m not sure OP should have capitulated. Someone who loves this tool will probably gladly pay more.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#156

Post by dangus »

user34283 wrote: post #130
risyachka wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> how do you think about defensibility? defensibility nowadays is app support and development. the more work you pour into it the more defensible it will be. I personally would gladly pay to have app constantly polished and improved. What I would not use is some vibe-coded alternative that was slopped with AI in a day and pushed to github with a tweet "i made a free X alternative" and then abandoned.

I would not. I'm not paying $40 for a taskbar replacement. And not for two years of updates and a two device limit on top. Maybe if it was $10, I could consider it. Prices for macOS apps are insane in my opinion. Everyone wants to charge yearly or every two years now too.

They’re not insane.

It costs $99 a year just to be able to write Mac apps at all.

Any sort of buy-once app on macOS is unsustainable to the developer. They are paying Apple $99 a year forever.

If you want cheap/free apps get off of Apple’s ecosystem and switch to Linux.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#157

Post by a-ve »

roger_ wrote: post #148

Looks great but even $40 for a perpetual license with only two years of updates still seems excessive. Taskbar, Uber, etc. cost less and have unlimited updates. How is this better?

I've already used these apps and they did not serve my purpose well.

- I forced myself to use uBar but it has another level of jank that doesn't sit right with me - it is not reliable on a multi-monitor setup, there's no guarantee it'll work after waking up from sleep. If you maximize windows they will sit behind uBar sometimes - all of which boringBar does better and is more reliable at.

- Taskbar by Lawand is better than uBar but it has similar problems with multi-monitor support and wake from sleep. Apart from that their "start menu" app launcher is still in beta and you have to download a beta version from the developer's twitter page to actually use it. And obviously it's a subjective thing but the boringBar UI is a lot better - it integrates nicely with macOS.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#158

Post by dangus »

villedespommes wrote: post #152

IMO, this isn't priced competitively: * Mbar can be had for $15 on stacksocial * Sidebar is $21 w/ lifetime updates * DockDoor is free and OSS

I think businesses like this should rarely listen to customers asking for cheaper prices.

If your price is higher that’s fewer people you need to convince to pay. Fewer customers also means lower support burden.

Obviously it’s a balance, but I think customers asking for lower prices may just be an indicator that people actually like what you’re doing and want to buy it. That probably means someone else is going to just buy it without worrying about the price.

The lowest priced option isn’t always the most popular, either. The F-150 sells a lot better than the Nissan Versa.

Psychologically people can also perceive a low price as an indicator of low value and quality.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#159

Post by 8avo »

DrammBA wrote: post #105
a-ve wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this is the top comment as of now - hijacking this to introduce a change to pricing: ------ OP here - based on the feedback, I’ve switched boringBar to a perpetual license for personal use: https://boringbar.app It’s now $40 for 2 devices and includes 2 years of updates. After that, you can keep using the version you have, or choose to pay for updates again later. For businesses, I’m keeping the existing annual…

Given how many developers here use LLMs daily, how do you think about defensibility? Tools like this seem relatively easy to reverse-engineer and replicate with enough time and LLM assistance. Did that influence your decision to charge a subscription or the change to a personal license?

I cannot agree with you more.

Personally, I dare not replace the Dock with Windows-style task bar for fear that my OLED display might have burn-in on it. Yet, when I need an alternative, I would rather make an APP for my own.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#160

Post by cgio »

dangus wrote: post #155
Griffinsauce wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple answer right? It makes more money. Not saying that was OPs motivation but that's obviously why the shift happened.

To me it seems like small businesses like this get squeezed by these demands to make everything cheaper while the big corporations ignore it and stick to their pricing. I’m not sure OP should have capitulated. Someone who loves this tool will probably gladly pay more.

The question is what is the proportion of people loving it vs liking it.
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