Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?

I want the 90s style ui chrome

Someone might very well have said exactly this five years ago. One of your examples, Sketch, has only existed since 2010. In five years time there will probably be some widely known app that didn't exist today.

What are the design and creation tools for augmented reality? Or chatbots or whatever. There will be new niches created, and new ways of doing old tasks discovered.

I was just thinking about this the other day. I'd like to develop something...

> Ten years ago you could have said anything from money management software, to code editors, vector image editors, remote storage, news readers

Then years ago there almost certainly where more than two options for most of these categories, at least for windows and Mac. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a market for competitors if they can offer something new.

Sketch seems like a perfect example: there already were tons of design packages before, but they found a niche that wasn't covered well and made a product fitting it perfectly. Despite Photoshop being the "king" of image editing software for over a decade there still are commercial competitors around. Despite google maps & co there still are desktop mapping packages targeting private users, not to mention commercial users. They probably are not the most profitable software products, but they are around for years and get updated, so their makers think it is worthwhile.

A common thread seems to be that these are professional or enthusiast tools, where user stickiness is higher, and that they either have unique features that are unlikely to be replicated elsewhere or that they offer a cheaper alternative to established professional tools. Also harder to be replaced by mobile or web options.

Regional markets can be another thing, where global companies often only offer sub-par or way to expensive options.

The biggest issue I see for "studios" is having to find good niches repeatedly to maintain headcount, because maintenance on a product often needs less developers than getting it off the ground, and in many markets you can't sell a new version every year.

I'm still always wishing that there would be some really good way to manage my information/media consumption in a simple, centralized way. I find Pocket unsatisfactory. I'm talking particularly about books, videos (movies, youtube vids, netflix series, etc) and news articles online. My current system is ridiculously scattered.