App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off • Hacker News Board

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#51

Post by pacificpendant » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 6:16 AM UTC

ogou wrote: post #23

Not one actual app is mentioned. As with most articles that are about this, few if any public facing examples are described. Where are the lists of actual production software that was vibe coded and also successful?

The article is relatively clear that it is an assumption that the apps are vibe-coded based on the jump being so large. I guess they could’ve tried to cross-correlate that with sales of books or courses on app development that vibe-coders wouldn’t need.

There are a few examples of the types of apps people are making in the comments on this page and it sounds like a lot of the time it’s custom apps for a personal itch that might appeal to very few other people.

Similar to how I have Python scripts on my computer that I won’t publish. They’re not production quality, but I know how to deal with their quirks. I suspect a lot of the apps mentioned in the comments are similar and maybe that’s fine.

I imagine some of the rise is people using AI to clone existing apps too.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#52

Post by ChrisArchitect » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 6:18 AM UTC

Scale strikes again. As with most things around AI the problem is the scale. The scale of impact is immense, the app store is flooded with slop, and we're not ready to handle it.

A take from Forbes a few weeks ago,

The App Store Is Flooded with AI Slop, Legitimate Developers Are Paying for It

https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2026/03/24/the-appl...

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#53

Post by datadrivenangel » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 6:23 AM UTC

insin wrote: post #10

johng wrote: post #2

I've been watching the /r/cli and /r/tui subreddits for some time. The amount of vibe coded apps posted there just continues to climb. Some people in the comments for these apps can be quite rude when they read the description and find out its vibe coded. Nevermind how vile some can be when it's not in the announcement but the author lets them know down the line in the comments.

/r/chrome_extensions feels like it's getting close to being 100% LLM generated, extension code, submission descriptions which read like you accidentally went to LinkedIn, and generic LLM replies

I didn't trust any of the chrome history extensions so Claude Code made me one in five minutes...

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#54

Post by drukenemo » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 6:29 AM UTC

HasjG16 wrote: post #42

102 year old chiming in: I was a software engineer in the 1970s and lost the will to program. After watching tech podcasts like the one from the author of the article, I vibe coded a calorie tracking app for my dog, which is in all app stores. Life is fun again. I feel energized and productive with my intellectual wheelchair.

That sounds fun and interesting! Where can I download your app?

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#55

Post by pacificpendant » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 6:31 AM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #11

DeepYogurt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are any of them good?

In my experience no, but I don't think that's a problem. It's fascinating to see so many ideas and so much enthusiasm. I sometimes wonder if the fervor will die down as people realize it's still really hard to make truly fantastic software, but it's hard to say. There's a ton of inertia behind the vibe coding rush. I also wonder if vibe coding is actually somewhat incompatible with the states of mind and contemplatio…

Without giving away exactly how old I am…

I am old enough to remember old programmers complaining about the wave of new shareware/freeware apps that people made with Visual Basic when that came out. Many of the apps were visually awful because it opened up desktop app development to people with no aesthetic experience.

I don’t see that awful style any more despite those tools for rapid UI creation still existing, did those people get better or did they get bored and move on to other things?

I guess the same will happen with vibe-coders, they’ll get the experience to make better software or their poor quality apps won’t give them what they want and they’ll move on.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#56

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 6:40 AM UTC

slopinthebag wrote: post #33

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't love seeing slop everywhere and I don't feel good about models being trained on people's hard work, but... I also have a hard time believing my work was ever much different. I've always regurgitated and synthesized existing solutions. I took them from open source examples. I read people's blogs. I'm basically a really slow LLM most of the time. Is that a form of deception too? I really wonder how much of a di…

No, building on top of other peoples work is fine. Taking credit for work you didn't do is not the same.

[deleted]

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#57

Post by locknitpicker » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 6:49 AM UTC

deaux wrote: post #26

locknitpicker wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your hypothesis to hold, you need to explain how your 1-person unicorn expects to get funded for their app when some guy with a $20 subscription can just as easily churn the same app or better.

Unicorn is indeed an exaggeration but 1-5M ARR doesn't need funding. Most in that range weren't VC funded, as by VC metrics that's considered a failure and they shut down if they can't get past it.

The problem still holds: how do you expect to make money by putting together something that anyone with no software development expertise and a $20 subscription is also able to put together?

See also: dark forest hypothesis and AI.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#58

Post by Tade0 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 7:10 AM UTC

rglover wrote: post #7

This just explained the "who's on first" my wife and I went through trying to find the right wood block game. They're all nearly identical, even copying/cloning exact UIs, labels, etc.

I downloaded a cake sort game to my phone for my daughter, thinking it's the same vendor as for the one on her mom's iPad.

Nope. Unrelated company - just looks the same.

Shovelware, but a snow shovel, not a regular one.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#59

Post by Gud » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 7:16 AM UTC

Many programmers("software developers") believe they have the final say on what an application should be like, and they were mostly right before the advent of LLM assisted software development.

I started programming as a child, although I was more interested in system administration.

Today I work as a high voltage test engineer on new substations. I do partial discharge measurements mostly on green field sites.

I have developed amazing tools for myself, software that I could only dream of having that would have taken years of cat herding and millions of dollars, and still not be quite what I wanted. I am a competent programmer, but I don't have the time. I have the ideas, I even know how to do it, but I already work 50-60 hours a week.

Now I can ping pong my ideas with chatgpt and claude and get something useful out of it, all in the background.

The only thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, is that this technology is owned by at best neutral corporations. I want to host it myself, but I can't pay the money, which sucks.

Re: App Store sees 84% surge in new apps as AI coding tools take off

#60

Post by deaux » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 7:23 AM UTC

locknitpicker wrote: post #57

deaux wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unicorn is indeed an exaggeration but 1-5M ARR doesn't need funding. Most in that range weren't VC funded, as by VC metrics that's considered a failure and they shut down if they can't get past it.

The problem still holds: how do you expect to make money by putting together something that anyone with no software development expertise and a $20 subscription is also able to put together? See also: dark forest hypothesis and AI.

Among all apps that do $1M ARR, the share that got there through particular software expertise that only few people had, has been exceedingly small for a very long time now.

Another similar but different point: no software development expertise doesn't mean no other expertise. As an extreme example, good luck building tax software with zero tax expertise. This applies to tons of niches.

A third point - lots of this increase in apps is from people who do have software expertise. They're now just able to create things they didn't have the time for, despite their expertise.