Software for One • Hacker News Board

Re: Software for One

#21

Post by BobbyTables2 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 3:51 AM UTC

rvz wrote: post #12

fny wrote: post #2

This is such a romantic idea, but unfortunately Apple and Google are hostile to this model. Of the two, iOS is /worst/ for running vibe coded apps. You need to pay $99 a year to be an Apple developer if you want your app to live on your phone for more than a a week. Distribution is a also pain in the ass even for personal use alone (you can't just toss around an IPA). Finally, so many useful APIs are totally locked u…

> You need to pay $99 a year to be an Apple developer if you want your app to live on your phone for more than a a week. No complaints over paying more than >$100 a month in subscriptions with coding agents but $99 a year is some how too much? Yet another reason why “developers” are just consumers that are selective complainers that want their tools to cost $0.00. Clearly as already stated in the article, hosting and…

Imagine paying $100/year for the privilege of running homemade software on your desktop computer…

Aside from Apple, running homemade software on a phone was free of cost, even back in the days of Motorola flip phones running Java…

Re: Software for One

#22

Post by matheusmoreira » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 3:51 AM UTC

rvz wrote: post #12

fny wrote: post #2

This is such a romantic idea, but unfortunately Apple and Google are hostile to this model. Of the two, iOS is /worst/ for running vibe coded apps. You need to pay $99 a year to be an Apple developer if you want your app to live on your phone for more than a a week. Distribution is a also pain in the ass even for personal use alone (you can't just toss around an IPA). Finally, so many useful APIs are totally locked u…

> You need to pay $99 a year to be an Apple developer if you want your app to live on your phone for more than a a week. No complaints over paying more than >$100 a month in subscriptions with coding agents but $99 a year is some how too much? Yet another reason why “developers” are just consumers that are selective complainers that want their tools to cost $0.00. Clearly as already stated in the article, hosting and…

> No complaints over paying more than >$100 a month in subscriptions with coding agents

Plenty. The problem isn't so much the price as it is the loss of sovereignty.

It's not your model running on your computer, it's $CORPORATION's model running on their own data centers. They're just generously allowing you to use it, and only on their terms.

Re: Software for One

#23

Post by tim-projects » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 3:56 AM UTC

"building personal software won't require a developer's stack for much longer."

I will if you are building anything good. What even is this statement?

Re: Software for One

#24

Post by fragmede » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 4:00 AM UTC

fny wrote: post #2

This is such a romantic idea, but unfortunately Apple and Google are hostile to this model. Of the two, iOS is /worst/ for running vibe coded apps. You need to pay $99 a year to be an Apple developer if you want your app to live on your phone for more than a a week. Distribution is a also pain in the ass even for personal use alone (you can't just toss around an IPA). Finally, so many useful APIs are totally locked u…

Oh no! $99! If you're rich enough to have bought into the Apple walled garden, $99 is nothing. Can't go out for a nice dinner with the family for less than that these days. Yeah it would be great if Apple gave it away for free, but it's their walled garden that we've locked ourselves into. My bigger complaint about Apple is how overboard they've gone with the security stuff, making it it that much harder to develop software for their systems, on top of costing more. But, gotta go to where the users are.

Re: Software for One

#25

Post by woah » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 4:06 AM UTC

rvz wrote: post #12

fny wrote: post #2

This is such a romantic idea, but unfortunately Apple and Google are hostile to this model. Of the two, iOS is /worst/ for running vibe coded apps. You need to pay $99 a year to be an Apple developer if you want your app to live on your phone for more than a a week. Distribution is a also pain in the ass even for personal use alone (you can't just toss around an IPA). Finally, so many useful APIs are totally locked u…

> You need to pay $99 a year to be an Apple developer if you want your app to live on your phone for more than a a week. No complaints over paying more than >$100 a month in subscriptions with coding agents but $99 a year is some how too much? Yet another reason why “developers” are just consumers that are selective complainers that want their tools to cost $0.00. Clearly as already stated in the article, hosting and…

hosting and distributing binaries to one person, who is also the person who created the app is free

Re: Software for One

#26

Post by farfatched » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 4:08 AM UTC

tim-projects wrote: post #23

"building personal software won't require a developer's stack for much longer." I will if you are building anything good. What even is this statement?

They're suggesting you won't need an IDE and a VM to build a service, for example.

You'll just prompt your LLM provider and they'll provision your software. It'll do testing, dependency updates, monitoring, and regular audits.

If you want fixes/features, you'll prompt your LLM and it'll make it so.

Re: Software for One

#27

Post by JeffRosenberg » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 4:17 AM UTC

This was really interesting, but I admit I bumped on this throwaway detail:

> Our sleep consultant's plan arrived as a PDF full of conditional logic: wake windows, nap caps, what to do when a nap fails

Every so often, you get a glimpse into a whole world you never knew existed.

Re: Software for One

#28

Post by satvikpendem » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 4:21 AM UTC

I thought the opinion of this article was widely known by now, as every thread about AI here talks about personalized software built with vibe coding.

Re: Software for One

#29

Post by what » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 4:28 AM UTC

JeffRosenberg wrote: post #27

This was really interesting, but I admit I bumped on this throwaway detail: > Our sleep consultant's plan arrived as a PDF full of conditional logic: wake windows, nap caps, what to do when a nap fails Every so often, you get a glimpse into a whole world you never knew existed.

This person seems insane. You don’t need to pay a “sleep consultant” to make a plan for your child’s nap times. It’s really not that complicated.

Re: Software for One

#30

Post by rrvsh » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 4:30 AM UTC

Side note, why not just deploy onto a VPS and save the money from using hosted services, as well as protecting yourself from when they inevitably go down? The CBA clearly shows that while active development is going on its trivial to have hosted service subscriptions because the AI sub is way more, but what if that sub disappears? You're left paying (relatively) exorbitant amounts compared to $1-10 per month per VPS for life, or less if you have the privilege and wherewithal to self host. It's also dead easy with AI. Maybe this just reinforces how much a personal runtime solution is needed, as stated in YC's recent RFS.