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Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
61–70 of 107 posts
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Money? That's harder, unfortunately. It's hard to innovate when people want to cling on to what they already know. This is a core element of my questions that other answers are unfortunately not addressing. Even if you make software that's less clunky than legacy-grade Adobe Kamatsu-tractor like offerings, how do you make make switching lucrative to the point of achieving self-sustainability?
I definitely agree that people are slow to switch from what they know, but I don't think it is impossible to build software that will make people jump ship on the old stuff. Take Sketch for example ( http://www.sketchapp.com ). Everyone on our team used to use Adobe Illustrator, and now everyone uses Sketch instead, because for what we do, it is simpler and better.
Good example, I think it is easier to dislodge old tractors with tools built for one specific thing, i.e. that do less, but do it so much simpler that they're just a joy to use (at least in comparison).
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#63Desktop is for sure at the end of the hype cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle but that does not mean that you cannot make money or not be successful when you write a very good software or you hit a particular niche. And I would not fear Google or Apple, I cannot remember when Google did the last time a rich and good desktop app for end consumers (was it Picasa, the last one?) and the only big professional…
You make a good point, a Picasa is sorely needed.
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#64NO. All the interesting desktop software has NOT already been written. Short example: there aren't many - if any - desktop word processing software with word or phrase completion, so that's one thing you could still do and sell if you wanted to. Another example: you could port the majority of desktop software from Windows to Linux and sell that to companies who want to lower their costs with Linux. Even if windows wa…
I like the idea of a word processor with many of the features we expect in text editors. I've figured out how to make Vim (+pandoc) do what I want, mostly, but I don't expect non-programmers to do that. Word completion, version control, better image integration than Word or Latex...
Sort of a different case. People type pretty fast on keyboards, so completion for speed gain is pretty marginal. A big benefit of coding word completion is just remembering the right thing to type (was it foobar or foo_bar or get_foo_bar?), which isn't the issue for typical writing (you can forget words, sure, but usually a thesaurus is what you need to find it).
Could still be room for it though
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funnily, Google [itself] has discountinued its "desktop search engine", which is a great pity, as there have been no decent alternatives and then, what do you do when you need to search, say, a document database, consisting of some .xlsx and .docx files (which are essentially compressed XML files, as I get it)?
I too miss GDS and its related offerings. Lately Windows built-in search has impressed me though. I also had great hopes for nepomuk on KDE but I think that is discontinued now.
Nepomuk has been replaced with Baloo, which is very much alive, way more performant and integrates well.
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#66Any space that lacks competitors is probably lacking competitors because there's no money in it, or because it takes a huge amount of work. The bar is high, but we're certainly not "done" with desktop software. For example, if you can create a text editor that's as snappy as Sublime and as extensible as Atom, you have my money.
Try Visual Studio Code. It's an Electron app, just like Atom, but it's a LOT faster. It's open open source too (https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode).
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#67Sketch actually arrived in a period when the vector / pixel drawing tool space was pretty filled up by giants like illustrator and photoshop. They still hold the "best software in da place" title. But, Sketch found its niche by offering a mixed, self-contained solution. The point is, first, distinction: while Adobe brought real innovation, Sketch somewhat aggregated functionality. Today, there are new fields opening (AI suffices to keep the thread open for ages). So it's actually safe to say that there will be a) space for primary innovation applications and b) space for aggregators, re-configurators of selected functionality looking for niche functionality (very much like Coda, today totally disrupted, did with web development tools ~ 5 years ago). Just look at Sublime and Atom. Even Coda.. wasn't it Vim with some fancy ftp plugin and tree plugin?
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#68One thing I would love to find as commercially friendly open source or want to buy or for up to $2 pr license is basically a single-site-browser creation kit (like mozilla prism) only with a few more added bells and whistles like quake-like slide-in, configurable window borders etc.
On the Mac, Fluid.app might fit some of those requirements.
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#69I don't think all the interesting stuff has been written. But more importantly, I think a lot of the existing software is just terrible. Big old monsters that can be time consuming to learn, and which kinda lock you in for numerous reasons. Horribly inefficient cluttered user interfaces, with old paradigms that aren't necessarily a great way to interact with the computer... I think there's a lot of innovation to be m…
"Money? That's harder, unfortunately. It's hard to innovate when people want to cling on to what they already know." It's also hard to make money when there's so much free software available, some of which is quite good. For example, it would take a huge amount of effort to improve on the functionality of Libre Office, Paint.net, Audacity, Wireshark, etc. (just to name a few of the free programs I use) but since peop…
All of those have piles of competition that make a bunch of money, except maybe Wireshark. In fact, I'm a paid user of the alternatives (MS Office, Photoshop, Reaper). I have used the free alternatives that you've mentioned, but relative to the commercial offerings, they are functional but clunky.
I think there's still piles of room for innovation on the desktop, both for open source and commercial software. We've reached a lot of local optima, but things can still be a whole lot better.
For an example of a Photoshop and Paint.net competitor, check out http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/. They've been around for a few years and seem to be doing quite well. BitWig is a new competitor in the DAW space: http://www.bitwig.com/en/bitwig-studio.html.
Re: Ask HN: Has all interesting desktop software already been written?
#70I don't really understand why people are writing off the desktop in general. For engineering and design and lab software nobody wants tablets. I guess this is all niche but it's a big niche.
Do I really want my next finite element analysis package or pattern design software or whatever running on a tablet? Maybe if the tablet is the size of my table or at least as big as all my monitors put together. This category of software is in general a bit crappy since professionals in these fields tend to just accept the flaws of the software and work around them and they just become part of the practice of the field if the software is sufficiently popular.