I launched a Mac utility; now there are 5 clones on the App Store using my story
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 (usbconnectioninformation.com) 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.
Regarding the origin story and copy, you're probably right that it's not the final reason someone clicks "buy." Its value is at the top of the marketing funnel—it's the hook that makes someone stop scrolling and consider an app from an unknown indie dev in the first place. It builds enough initial trust for them to actually look at the screenshots and features.
And thanks for the point about the DMCA—I will definitely be looking into that for the most blatant copycats.
1. Does it solve the underlying problem
2. Am I a standard or outlier user of the product
3. Does it make it easy to get it / use it
4. Is it from a company/developer that I like
I'm obviously not going to use an app that doesn't solve the original goal. Beyond that, some examples of things that have made me go chasing for other alternatives:
1. Updating the app isn't automated -- I use a window manager on Windows where updates have to be manually downloaded and run, and every time I update I google if there's a viable replacement.
2. The app has a bunch of fluff -- I'm currently trying a couple new apps for logging infant activity like diaper changes / feeds, and 90% of the options can do the task but are covered in other buttons/options/reports that I do not care about.
3. I'm clearly not the target audience for the developer -- I use Anydesk for remote management of some Windows desktops but all their plans are clearly enterprise/prosumer-focused and I'm actively preparing for them to kill off my plan level or break the functionality.
Study an audience for their pains and worldview and what they buy. Earn their trust through writing and freebies. Then they will want to buy because it's from you specifically.
I can recommend https://30x500.com/
It really feels like we all have to become influencers these days.
So to answer your question, LLMs have lowered the bar substantially
You could try and develop a brand and market it but I don’t think that would go well for something like this. Best case maybe you can game the rankings to stay number one but you’re probably up against professional app copiers.
So your moat is speed of innovation. Your basic app is copied. What new feature will enable you to stay ahead and drive sales? Or perhaps no feature can do that as the crowd grows so it’s on to the next app that doesn’t yet exist. What’s your new pain point?
With or without the advent LLMs, it's an uphill battle to build a moat around a small (but nice!) wrapper around the output of a command-line tool shipped with MacOS.
> what is the moat?
Increasingly, and sadly, it's online services with a monthly subscription and no data portability. Get users in with a generous free tier and pull up the drawbridge so they can't get out easily.
My goal was to build a classic, single-purchase utility that does one thing well and doesn't require an account or a subscription.
I do think that small, single-purpose apps are probably the easiest lunch to eat. Narrowly scoped greenfield projects are where the LLMs seem to excel right now so that game seems like a race to the bottom.
As far as the cloning goes: your only recourse is probably the DMCA angle for the exact duplicate text. It's a shame they're so lazy as to straight copy it, but I suspect the response (if any) will be them lightly laundering it through ChatGPT so it's no longer the same.
Good luck! And I hope you find more useful ideas people might pay for
Regarding Reddit, it's a great place to find users but also copy-cats. Stick to posting "I built a thing that solves a problem" and avoid the bragging "I made $N in N days" indie-hacker style. The latter doesn't help the app anyways.
Moat: there isn't one for a utility someone can build in a few days. It can still be a good business - you seem to have marketing savvy which is a big part of it.
One suggestion, on your homepage - the "See USB Connection Information in Action" the screenshots are much too small. Nice looking app!
What's your definition of "successful"? Mac App Store volume is quite low, especially with upfront paid apps. You're likely averaging only a few unit sales per day, right? Maybe only one unit per day, and even that might be a generous estimate.
> A few open-source clones have also appeared on GitHub
Is your app open source? If so, that's probably why you're getting copycats.
> It seems that derivative apps with plagiarized descriptions and app elements are being approved without issue. Does this signal a shift in App curation?
No. Apple's so-called "curation" has always been terrible.
To clarify, my app is not open source. I only mentioned the open-source clones that have also appeared.
In what sense are open source Github projects "clones" of a closed source App Store app? Do you have links to these projects?
And do you have links to the Mac App Store apps that stole your origin story? I'm not finding any in Mac App Store search.
In your submission, what exactly did you mean by "organic press"? Press would imply news media coverage, but I'm not finding any of that in Google search.