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I launched a Mac utility; now there are 5 clones on the App Store using my story

14 tTarnMhrkm 7 9/16/2025, 11:51:39 PM
I'm a solo dev, and I wanted to share a recent experience as a case study on the current state of the App Store and indie development.

A few months ago, I built a simple macOS utility to solve a personal frustration: verifying the actual speed of USB-C cables and devices in the Mac menu bar. It is call USB Connection Information and it supports macOS 13 and up. Before launch, there were no other apps in this specific niche on the Mac App Store. The app became unexpectedly successful, hitting the top 100 paid utilities and getting a good amount of organic press.

In the last two weeks, at least five near-identical apps have appeared on the App Store. The concerning part is that some of these clones have copied my App Store description, including my personal origin story about why I built the app.

A few open-source clones have also appeared on GitHub, which I see as a positive community contribution. My concern is with the commercial clones on the App Store that are engaging in plagiarism.

This raises a few questions I'd be interested to hear HN's thoughts on:

I've been transparent about my success on Reddit. How much are LLMs lowering the barrier to entry, allowing others to take a validated idea and marketing copy and generate a functional clone in a matter of days?

It seems that derivative apps with plagiarized descriptions and app elements are being approved without issue. Does this signal a shift in App curation?

My app's value is its simplicity. In an environment where simple, successful ideas can be replicated this quickly, what is the moat? Is it brand, speed of innovation, marketing, or something else?

Curious to hear your perspectives.

Comments (7)

akerl_ · 2m ago
It's not clear to me what you'd want the moat to be. It can't be the idea, because you don't hold ownership over the concept of checking USB device speed. The marketing copy is pretty clearly something you could DMCA but also it seems unlikely people are buying a USB connection tester because of the dev's origin story.
chrismcb · 50s ago
Personally I works at least submit a DCMA takedown of the plagiarizing.
joshu · 12m ago
DMCA the ones using your text?
tTarnMhrkm · 10m ago
I am in the process for doing this. I have heard mixed results on action taken for these. There are some that I would think it is extremely clear on. Thanks for the info!
add-sub-mul-div · 11m ago
Can you build a moat on someone else's property?
cwmoore · 6m ago
Can they?
tTarnMhrkm · 9m ago
Lol, depends on the century.